Green synthesised‐gold nanoparticles in photothermal therapy of breast cancer

In this work, the use of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), synthesised using Curcuma mangga (CM) extract in photothermal killing of breast cancer (MCF-7) cells is demonstrated. CM-AuNPs showed higher photothermal heating efficiency compared to citrate-AuNPs upon irradiation with a 532 nm laser. In addition, treatment of MCF-7 cells with CM-AuNPs coupled with laser irradiation for 120 s was found to significantly reduce (72%) the cell viability compared to about 13%, obtained with citrate-AuNPs. Results from flow cytometry showed that the CM-AuNP-dependent photothermal-induced MCF-7 cells death was triggered mainly by apoptosis mechanism. All these results suggested the potential use of CM-AuNPs as therapeutic agents in cancer therapy.