A novel multifunctional biomimetic Au@BSA nanocarrier as a potential siRNA theranostic nanoplatform

Pancreatic cancer severely affects people's wellbeing and has been one of the most malignant digestive diseases with regard to its tough diagnosis and treatment. Recently many papers have focused on the utility of siRNA as potential therapeutics to cure tumors. Herein, we developed a novel siRNA nanocarrier based on biomimetic Au@BSA nanoflowers that might be applied as a potential theranostic nanoplatform. As gold has a much larger atomic number and X-ray absorption coefficient in comparison with traditional iodine agents, it is suitable to utilize the nanoprobe for computed tomography (CT) as well as optical multimodal imaging when combined with fluorescence markers. Firstly, Au@BSA nanoflowers were obtained utilizing bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a biotemplate. Then the synthesized Au@BSA nanocomposites were conjugated with siRNA-FAM to form Au@BSA–siRNA-FAM through electrostatic layer-by-layer assembling interactions. The constructed delivery system showed good biocompatibility due to the BSA coating. Furthermore, the in vitro experiments demonstrated that the delivered siRNA could efficiently suppress the growth of BXPC-3 cells through gene silencing. In general, the biomimetic Au@BSA nanocarrier may provide a new method for cancer therapy.