Radiation therapy is one of the most important methods in treatment of cancer. Targeted metal nanoparticles (NPs) play an effective role in reducing ionizing radiation side effects through increasing the effect of ionizing radiation on cancer cells and controlling the harmful effect of radiation on healthy cells. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of targeted folic acid gold NPs (GNPs) using linker bovine serum albumin in the absorption and sensitivity of gold NPs in HeLa cervical cancer cells compared to non-targeted gold NPs.

In this study, GNPs were conjugated with folic acid by bovine serum albumin as the linker. The binding of bovine serum albumin and folic acid to GNPs was investigated by infrared (IR) spectroscopy. Toxicity was measured by the MTT method and based on the results, the GNPs’ non-toxic concentration was determined. The effect of targeted synthesized GNPs on their absorption and sensitivity were evaluated on HeLa cells.

The non-toxic concentration of GNPs was 12 μg/ml. Incubation of the cells with this concentration was performed for 2, 4, and 24 hours and it was observed that in 4 hours, the absorption rate of targeted GNPs was about 4 times higher than that of non-targeted GNPs. The radiosensitization ratios of targeted and non-targeted GNPs in the studied cancer cells relative to the control group (without NPs) exposed to 6 MV photon radiation were 1.32±0.02 and 1.19±0.02, respectively.

The use of bovine serum albumin linker to target GNPs has a significant effect on increasing the absorption of GNPs and the effect of ionizing radiation on HeLa cells under 6 MV photon beams.