Large-Scale Synthesis of Glutathione-Coated and 68Ga- Labeled Gold Nanoclusters for PET/CT Imaging of Tumors

Gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) have gained popular attention in recent years because of their efficient tumor accumulation through EPR effect and renal clearance. In this work, we put forward a new approach to prepare glutathione-coated, ⁶⁸Ga-labeled AuNCs (⁶⁸Ga-GHS@AuNCs) with ultrasmall sizes (< 2 nm) for PET/CT imaging of tumors. GHS@AuNCs has low cytotoxicity in vitro. PET/CT imaging revealed that the ⁶⁸Ga-GHS@AuNCs could target tumor and be cleared by kidney efficiently. Our study demonstrates that ⁶⁸Ga-GHS@AuNCs has great potential for detection of tumors.