Gout is caused by the overproduction of uric acid and the inefficient metabolism of dietary purines in humans. Current treatments of gout, which include anti-inflammatory drugs, cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors, and systemic glucocorticoids, have proven to produce harmful side-effects. Our research laboratory has recently introduced an innovative approach for the decrystallization of biological and chemical crystals using the Metal-Assisted and Microwave-Accelerated Evaporative Decrystallization (MAMAD) technique. The MAMAD technique utilizes microwave energy and gold nanoparticles.The microwaves is used to heat and activate the gold nanoparticles that reacts  as “nano-bullets” and rapidly disrupt the crystal structure of biological crystals placed on planar surfaces. In this study, crystals of various sizes and compositions were studied as models for tophaceous gout at different stages (i.e., uric acid as small crystals (~10–100 µm) and l-alanine as medium (~300 µm) and large crystals (~4400 µm). Our results showed that the use of the MAMAD technique resulted in the reduction of the size and number of uric acid and l-alanine crystals up to &gt;40% when exposed to intermittent microwave heating (up to 20 W power at 8 GHz) in the presence of 20 nm gold nanoparticles with exposure up to 120 seconds. This study demonstrates that the MAMAD technique can be potentially used as an alternative therapeutic method for the treatment of gout by effective decrystallization of large crystals, similar in size to those that often occur in gout.<br/>

Decrystallization of crystals using gold nano-bullets and the metal-assisted and microwave-accelerated decrystallization technique

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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