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Background  The delivery of plasmonic particles, such as gold nanorods, to the tumor microenvironment has attracted much interest in biomedical optics for topical applications as the photoacoustic imaging and photothermal ablation of cancer. However, the systemic injection of free particles still crashes into a complexity of biological barriers, such as the reticuloendothelial system, that prevent their efficient biodistribution. In this context, the notion to exploit the inherent features of tumor-tropic cells for the creation of a Trojan horse is emerging as a plausible alternative.    Results  We report on a convenient approach to load cationic gold nanorods into murine macrophages that exhibit chemotactic sensitivity to track gradients of inflammatory stimuli. In particular, we compare a new model of poly- l -lysine-coated particles against two alternatives of cationic moieties that we have presented elsewhere, i.e. a small quaternary ammonium compound and an arginine-rich cell-penetrating peptide. Murine macrophages that are exposed to poly- l -lysine-coated gold nanorods at a dosage of 400 µM Au for 24 h undertake efficient uptake, i.e. around 3 pg Au per cell, retain the majority of their cargo until 24 h post-treatment and maintain around 90% of their pristine viability, chemotactic and pro-inflammatory functions.    Conclusions  With respect to previous models of cationic coatings, poly- l -lysine is a competitive solution for the preparation of biological vehicles of gold nanorods, especially for applications that may require longer life span of the Trojan horse, say in the order of 24 h. This biopolymer combines the cost-effectiveness of small molecules and biocompatibility and efficiency of natural peptides and thus holds potential for translational developments.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (10.1186/s12951-018-0377-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Polylysine as a functional biopolymer to couple gold nanorods to tumor-tropic cells