Synthesis and analysis of gold nanoparticles incorporating phytochemicals for targeted cancer therapy

The clinical application of therapeutic compounds is often constrained by poor water solubility, low bioavailability, instability, and non-specific distribution. Drug delivery systems utilizing nanotechnology, especially metallic nanoparticles like gold nanoparticles offer a critical solution by providing highly customizable carriers capable of overcoming these inherent physicochemical limitations. This research addresses a key gap in literature, the lack of a standardized methodology for comparing the efficacy of gold nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems, utilizing widely varied therapeutic agents. The study aimed to create several gold nanoparticle drug delivery systems from a diverse panel of agents (EGCG, Curcumin, Thymoquinone, Betulin, Ginsenoside, and Temsirolimus), which exhibit significant differences in functional groups, lipophilicity, and complexity. Two primary synthetic approaches were explored: direct reduction/mediation (successful for polyphenols like EGCG, thymoquinone and curcumin), often optimized via initial deprotonation under alkaline conditions and post-synthesis conjugation to pegylated gold nanoparticles (effective for challenging structures like Betulin and Ginsenoside). In depth characterization confirmed that these methodologies were successful in the creation of gold nanoparticle systems that are comparable in size (± 20 nm), structure (spherical), concentration, dispersity (mono dispersed or semi-mono dispersed), and therapeutic agent retention (30 ± 10% of total mass). The results validate that these standardized synthetic methodologies enable the creation of a wide variety of comparable systems, paving the way for a novel comparative and competitive framework. This approach is expected to be essential for rapidly evaluating the effectiveness of drug delivery across different therapeutic compounds, thereby significantly accelerating the speed of preclinical drug discovery and helping to identify the most effective nanocarrier system.