Near-infrared activation of environmentally-friendly gold and silver nanoparticles for unclogging arteries

Coronary artery disease, the number one cause of death throughout the world, is the most prevalent form of heart disease. It occurs when there is unhealthy cholesterol build-up in the coronary arteries, which impairs their ability to provide blood and oxygen to the heart, leading to a heart attack or stroke. Although many conventional medications and approaches (e.g., stents) can re-establish blood flow in clogged arteries, medications do not target specific pathological areas (such as thrombosis), affecting nearby healthy blood vessels, and surgical procedures can be highly invasive. We hypothesized that certain nanoparticles (gold and silver coated with aspirin) activated by near-infrared (NIR) would improve blood flow in clogged arteries because they exhibit special thermal responsive properties. Both nanoparticles used in this study were obtained from environmentally friendly materials and are safe to help minimize toxicity during metabolism in important parts of the body, such as the lungs and brain. After the green synthesis of these nanoparticles, we characterized them using dynamic light scattering (DLS) to determine their average size. After adding these nanoparticles to a clogged artery model system and activating them by NIR, the simulated blood flow rate increased from 3.6 to 10.2 mL/min with aspirin-coated gold nanoparticles and increased from 3.9 to 8.3 mL/min with aspirin-coated silver nanoparticles. In summary, this study demonstrated that gold and silver nanoparticles improved the flow rate in a fluid model of a clogged artery and should, thus, be further studied for cardiovascular disease applications.