Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative, progressive disease that results in atrophy of the brain, causing memory loss and affecting a person's ability to perform daily tasks. It is considered the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S and the 5th among the elderly. At present, AD is diagnosed when patients already exhibit irreversible early cognitive loses, eliminating chances of prevention or cure. Hence, an early diagnostic tool is needed. AD biomarkers such as amyloid beta-protein, have been found in the retina and the brain in an early stage, however, there is no current method to visualize them except with invasive biopsy or post mortem histology. This project aims to develop a non-invasive early diagnosis tool by using Large Gold Nanorods (LGNRs) as contrast agent for Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). OCT is an established diagnostic tool in everyday ophthalmology clinic that can potential non-invasively visualize the current AD biomarkers in the retina with the aid of a contrast agent. LGNRs enhance the visualization of invisible cellular biomarkers due to their plasmon resonance absorption and scattering in the near-infrared region. In this experiment LGNRs were synthesized by using a seed-mediated growth method. The LGNRs are functionalized by conjugating them with an antibody against AD biomarkers via Au-S bonds. The functionalized LGNRs are expected to bind to AD biomarkers. Two techniques, immunochemistry and immunofluorescence staining, are going to be performed on the brain and the eyes of the APOE4 knockout rat model of AD to justify the choice of the antibody used in this experiment. The resulting sizes of LGNRs were 100 nm long and 30 nm wide, with an aspect ratio of 1:3. The longitudinal surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) peak was at 800 nm to match the light source of our OCT.

Functionalized gold nanorods as contrast agent for optical coherence tomography imaging for early detection of Alzheimer's disease

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.