Glutathione-coated luminescent gold nanoparticles: a surface ligand for minimizing serum protein adsorption.

Ultrasmall glutathione-coated luminescent gold nanoparticles (GS-AuNPs) are known for their high resistance to serum protein adsorption. Our studies show that these NPs can serve as surface ligands to significantly enhance the physiological stability and lower the serum protein adsorption of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs), in addition to rendering the NPs the luminescence property. After the incorporation of GS-AuNPs onto the surface of SPIONs to form the hybrid nanoparticles (HBNPs), these SPIONs' protein adsorption was about 10-fold lower than those of the pure glutathione-coated SPIONs suggesting that GS-AuNPs are capable of providing a stealth effect against serum proteins.