Abstract
Despite an abundant literature on gold nanoparticles use for biomedicine, only a few of the gold-based nanodevices are currently tested in clinical trials, and none of them are approved by health agencies. Conversely, ionic gold has been used for decades to treat human rheumatoid arthritis and benefits from 70-y hindsight on medical use. With a view to open up new perspectives in gold nanoparticles research and medical use, we revisit here the literature on therapeutic gold salts. We first summarize the literature on gold salt pharmacokinetics, therapeutic effects, adverse reactions, and the present repurposing of these ancient drugs. Owing to these readings, we evidence the existence of a common metabolism of gold nanoparticles and gold ions and propose to use gold salts as a “shortcut” to assess the long-term effects of gold nanoparticles, such as their fate and toxicity, which remain challenging questions nowadays. Moreover, one of gold salts side effects (i.e., a blue discoloration of the skin exposed to light) leads us to propose a strategy to biosynthesize large gold nanoparticles from gold salts using light irradiation. These hypotheses, which will be further investigated in the near future, open up new avenues in the field of ionic gold and gold nanoparticles-based therapies.
Highlights
Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) emerged over the last decades due to their potential for biomedical use as imaging probes, drug delivery systems, or therapeutic agents
We focus on specific fundamental questions: what can we learn from the rich and wide scientific literature about the medical use of gold salts? Could this knowledge be exploited to better understand the fate of GNPs and to optimize GNP medical use? After a brief presentation of modern challenges in nanomedicine, we will summarize the considerable work that was performed with medical gold salts through 70 y
While the scientific literature overflows with suggestions for various prospective biomedical applications of GNPs for therapy, imaging, or drug delivery, only a few of the GNPs-based systems are tested in clinical trials, and none of them are approved by health agencies
Summary
[12] extensively described aurosomes, which appear as dense vesicles, presenting lamellar, filamentous, or rod-shaped structures composed of small particles with
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