Biodistribution and in vivo toxicity of aptamer-loaded gold nanostars

Image depicts tail-vein injection of gold nanostar (AuNS) nanoconstructs and their accumulation in tumor. We investigated the toxicity and biodistribution of aptamer-loaded AuNS in non-tumor rats and tumor-bearing nude mice. In vivo studies revealed that the therapeutic nanoconstructs did not induce any sign of acute toxicity in healthy animals even at high dosing. Biodistribution results in tumor-bearing mice showed accumulation of AuNS nanoconstructs in two different tumor models whose cancer cells overexpress nucleolin. The amount of accumulation, however, was lower in fibrosarcoma tumors compared to that in metastatic breast cancer tumors.197