| Summary: | Efficient renal clearance has been observed from ultrasmall zwitterionic glutathione-coated
gold
nanoparticles
(GS-AuNPs), which have broad preclinical applications in cancer diagnosis and
kidney
functional imaging. However, origin of such efficient renal clearance is still not clear.
Herein, we conducted head-to-head comparison on physiological stability and renal
clearance of two zwitterionic luminescent AuNPs coated with cysteine and
glycine-cysteine (Cys-AuNPs and Gly-Cys-AuNPs), respectively. While both of them exhibited
similar surface
charges and the same core sizes, additional glycine slightly increased the hydrodynamic diameter of the
AuNPs by 0.4 nm but significantly enhanced physiological stability of the AuNPs as well as
altered their clearance pathways. These studies indicate that the ligand length, in
addition to surface charges and size, also plays a key role in the physiological
stability and renal clearance of ultrasmall zwitterionic inorganic NPs.
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