Protein-Guided Formation of Silver Nanoclusters and Their Assembly with Graphene Oxide as an Improved Bioimaging Agent with Reduced Toxicity

As an emerging category of fluorescent metal nanoclusters (NCs), protein-based NCs are considered as one of the promising candidates for the biomedical applications because of their luminescent properties and inherent biocompatibilities. Protein-capped silver NCs impregnated onto graphene oxide (GO) sheets can be internalized into the K562 cell, a human erythroleukemic cell line, and the Ag NCs/GO assembly can act as a synergistic drug carrier for Imatinib, a first-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Further, Ag NCs adsorbed on GO have a great potential to be used as X-ray computer tomography (CT) imaging contrasting agents, and CT images show significant contrast enhancement of bone tissues in mice models. Overall, this assembly can exhibit great potential in the field of biomedical application and therapeutic studies.