Enhancing the radiotherapeutic index of gamma radiation on cervical cancer cells by gold nanoparticles

Nanotechnology has the impending ability to improve the therapeutic potential of drugs and radiation-based treatment approaches for reducing cancerous cell death while curtailing collateral toxicity to non-cancerous cells. Among all metal nanomaterials, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are establishing themselves as an excellent radiosensitizer and serve as a multimodal modality due to their unique physicochemical properties. The primordial purpose of the work is to evaluate the synergistic effect and molecular level interaction of gamma (γ) radiation on human cervical cancer cell (HeLa) in the presence of AuNPs. Biocompatible AuNPs in combination with γ-radiation were found to exhibit elated cytotoxic effects on cancer cells as evidenced by cell-based assays. The implication of AuNPs facilitates the minimization of radiation dose employment on cultured cells. As per our experimental evaluation, the modus operandi of dual effectors ascertained that a higher amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) plays a key role in cellular functionality collapse. In that scenario, it can be concluded that AuNP-mediated radiosensitization proved to be the plausible candidate for preclinical testing in nanoparticle-based radiotherapy.