Trafficking
of Gold Nanorods in Breast Cancer Cells:
Uptake, Lysosome Maturation, and Elimination
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Abstract
Gold nanorods (AuNRs) have been largely
investigated driven by
their promising potentials in drug delivery, imaging, and photodynamic
therapy because of their distinctive physicochemical properties. It
is widely known that AuNRs can be taken up by different cells, however,
the trafficking of the nanorods in cells are less known. In this work,
the behaviors and fate of AuNRs in the human breast cancer cell line
MDA-MB-231 were intensively probed by transmission electron microscopy
(TEM) with detailed time resolution, together with induced couple
plasmon mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS), confocal microscopy, Western blot,
and cell viability assay. We reveal that AuNRs enter the classic lysosome
maturation through endocytosis and are sequestered in the vesicular
system even during cell division. AuNRs can escape from the lysosomes
occasionally and the escaped AuNRs are recycled back into the lysosomal
system through cytoprotective autophagy. The dilution of AuNRs in
cells is mainly attributed to the cell division rather than exocytosis,
because expelled AuNRs can be re-endocytosed by the cells. The feature
of vesicular restriction guarantees other organelles such as mitochondria
and nucleus are exempted from the direct exposure to AuNRs