Gold/cobalt ferrite nanocomposite as a potential agent for photothermal therapy

Abstract

The study encompasses an investigation of optical, photothermal and biocompatibility properties of a composite consisting of golden cores surrounded by superparamagnetic CoFe₂O₄ nanoparticles. Accompanied with the experiment, the computational modeling reveals that each adjusted magnetic nanoparticle redshifts the plasmon resonance frequency in gold and nonlinearly increases the extinction cross-section at ~800 nm. The concentration dependent photothermal study demonstrates a temperature increase of 8.2 K and the photothermal conversion efficiency of 51% for the 100 μg/mL aqueous solution of the composite nanoparticles, when subjected to a laser power of 0.5 W at 815 nm. During an in vitro photothermal therapy, a portion of the composite nanoparticles, initially seeded at this concentration, remained associated with the cells after washing. These retained nanoparticles effectively heated the cell culture medium, resulting in a 22% reduction in cell viability after 15 min of the treatment. The composite features a potential in multimodal magneto-plasmonic therapies.

Keywords: cancer therapy; cobalt ferrite; gold; nanocomposite; photothermal therapy; photothermy.