Fig. 7. In vivo efficacy of the gold nanoparticles generated through vectorized biomineralization of ionic gold.

a Fluorescence contrast afforded via in vivo imaging system (IVIS)-based imaging (430_Ex 840_Em) between on-site and off-site across one week period for treatments of Au–PEG with no photothermal treatment (yellow), Au–PEG with photothermal treatment (red), or Na–PEG (blue) with bright field and fluorescence images representative of Au–PEG or Na–PEG-treated mice (three days post injection) with arrows indicating intratumoral injection sites for Na–PEG (blue) and Au–PEG (yellow). Error bars are standard deviation of the mean (n ≥ 3 biologically independent animals). b Photothermal effect of intratumorally generated gold nanoparticles via 3 min applications of 500 mW 633 nm laser as represented by maximum surface temperature from the tumors either treated with Na–PEG (purple) or Au–PEG (red) with thermal and bright field images representative of Na–PEG (purple) or Au–PEG (red)-treated mice after two laser applications (thresholding contrast for thermal images are automatically read via the iPad mounted FLIR software). Error bars are standard deviation of the mean (n ≥ 5 laser treatments). c Bright field, Raman spectral mapped and merged images of excised tumors from mice treated with Au–PEG (± laser ablation) or Na–PEG (± laser ablation) with corresponding Raman point spectra for positions designated with arrows. Scale bars are 20 µm.