Development of Albumin‐Hyaluronic Acid Coated Gold Nanorods as Effective Photothermal Agents for Cancer Therapy

ABSTRACT

The inherent complexity of cancer treatment limits the efficacy of conventional therapies, which frequently cause damage to healthy tissues. This limitation has driven the development of more localized strategies like minimally invasive photothermal therapy (PTT) using near‐infrared lasers. Due to their exceptional optical characteristics, gold nanorods (AuNRs) emerge as a leading material in this field, yet the heavy cytotoxicity of the surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) remains a major biomedical barrier. To overcome the cytotoxicity challenges and introduce a biofunctional surface, we developed multifunctional gold nanorods by replacing toxic CTAB with a biorelevant bovine serum albumin (BSA) and hyaluronic acid (HA) conjugate synthesized via the Maillard reaction. This functionalization creates a biorelevant and multimodal coating that eliminates toxicity while protecting colloidal stability. Characterization confirmed that the AuNRs retained their structural and optical integrity after functionalization. In vitro assays in L929 and MCF‐7 cells supported the elimination of surfactant‐induced cytotoxicity, showing good cytocompatibility. Furthermore, under 808 nm laser irradiation, the developed BSA:HA@AuNRs demonstrated the destruction of MCF‐7 cancer cells and showed great promise for PTT applications.