Extracellular biosynthesis of gadolinium oxide (Gd₂O₃) nanoparticles, their biodistribution and bioconjugation with the chemically modified anticancer drug taxol

• Shadab Ali Khan,
• Sanjay Gambhir and
• Absar Ahmad

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 249–257, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.27

• treatment of cancer, we first synthesized extracellular, protein-capped, highly stable and well-dispersed gadolinium oxide (Gd2O3) nanoparticles by using thermophilic fungus Humicola sp. The biodistribution of the nanoparticles in rats was checked by radiolabelling with Tc-99m. Finally, these nanoparticles

• ) and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS). The Gd2O3–taxol bioconjugate was confirmed by UV–vis spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy and was purified by using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Keywords: bioconjugation; biodistribution; gadolinium oxide; humicola sp; transmission

• fungus based approach for the synthesis of this material for the first time. We show that the thermophilic fungus Humicola sp. can be used for the synthesis of Gd2O3 nanoparticles at 50 °C. Since Gd2O3 nanoparticles have proved their value in site-specific drug delivery systems for cancer therapy, we