Tailoring Polymer-Coated Gold Nanocages for Chemical Sampling in a Microdialysis Device
by Shrestha, Sweta; Stenken, Julie A.; Chen, Jingyi
Gold (Au) nanocages have extensive biomedical applications. The polymer poly-N-isopropylacrylamide (p-NIPAAm) is a thermally responsive polymer that can change its structural conformations with change in temp. with respect to its low crit. soln. temp. (LCST). Gold nanocages with localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) tuned near IR region are coated with p-NIPAAm and this polymer controls the release of samples from nanocages with the temp. change. Besides with other biomedical applications of p-NIPAAm coated nanocages such as drug delivery, photoacoustic imaging, photothermal therapy, and contrast agent, this preliminary study was done to demonstrate whether they can be applied for chem. sampling using microdialysis device. Microdialysis sampling is a minimally invasive device that collects samples via diffusion from different tissues and organs with aid of semipermeable hollow fiber membrane. The analyte diffuse into the semipermeable membrane and carried out by perfusion fluid for further chem. anal. The main objective of our study is to demonstrate if p-NIPAAm coated gold nanocages passed in the perfusion fluid could collect analytes through microdialysis sampling. Our study showed that p-NIPAAm coated nanocages can be used for chem. sampling without any damage to microdialysis probe.