The impact of gold nanoparticles conjugated with albumin on prostate and breast cancer cell lines: insights into cytotoxicity, cellular uptake, migration, and adhesion potential

Breast and prostate cancers are prevalent in women and men, respectively. The process of metastasis plays a crucial role in cancer advancement. Herein, two distinct forms of gold nanoparticles (GNP) were prepared and modified with bovine serum albumin (BSA) to create gold nanorods-BSA (GNR-BSA) and gold nanospheres-BSA (GNS-BSA). Various aspects of biological interactions of these nanoparticles with two prostate cancer cell lines (DU-145 and PC-3) and a breast cancer cell line (MDA-MB-231) have been investigated. The cell viability of DU-145 and PC-3 ranged from 17 to 95% across concentrations of 0.55 to 34.5 µg/mL and for MDA-MB-231 ranged from 17 to 85%. GNS-BSA exhibited no significant cytotoxicity against the cancer cell lines. Regarding cellular uptake, GNR-BSA demonstrated uptake rates of 10%, 14%, and 5% for DU-145, PC-3, and MDA-MB-231 cell lines, respectively, while GNS-BSA showed uptake of less than 0.4% for all the cell lines investigated. Notably, GNR-BSA significantly impeded the cellular migration of DU-145 and PC-3 cells over 48 h (hr) and MDA-MB-231 cells over 24 h compared to controls. GNS-BSA inhibited cell migration over 48 h (hr) for DU-145 and over 24 h for PC-3 and MDA-MB-231. Adhesion assay showed a moderate reduction of PC-3 adhesion ability (\(\sim\) 20%) by GNS-BSA, while a minimum effect was observed on DU-145 (\(\sim\) 5%). GNR-BSA has minimally affected the adhesion ability of both PC-3 (\(\sim\) 8%) and DU-145 (\(\sim\) 13%), and no adhesion ability reduction was observed on MDA-MB-231 by both GNR-BSA or GNS-BSA. This study suggests that GNP-BSA could be promising potential agents for combating cancer and inhibiting cellular invasion, and they could serve as promising platforms for drug delivery.