Gold Nanoparticles based Plasmonic Photothermal Therapy (PPTT) has recently been extensively studied in cancer treatment, based on the local hyperthermia induced by their plasmonic photothermal effect on cancer cells or tissues. Although AuNPs with various morphologies have shown photothermal conversion capabilities, their performance in photothermal therapy is still in debate. To reveal the AuNPs with the most promising PPTT performance, three commonly established gold nanostructures: gold nanospheres (AuNSs), gold nanorods (AuNRs), gold nanostars (AuNSTs), were synthesized in this study with identical mPEG-SH surface modification. The corresponding PTT performance and antitumor effect were evaluated and compared. It was found that all AuNPs can convert 808 nm Near-Infrared (NIR) laser light energy into heat through the Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance effect, and AuNSTs showed the highest photothermal conversion efficiency. In vitro cell experiments demonstrated that all PEGylated AuNPs had low cytotoxicity and AuNSTs were the most capable ones in inducing local hyperthermia under an identical condition of 10 min 300 mW/cm² NIR light irradiation. Therefore, with the same surface modification, AuNSTs should be the most promising agent for PTT therapy among their counterparts.

基于金纳米粒子的等离子体光热疗法 (PPTT) 最近在癌症治疗中得到了广泛的研究，基于它们对癌细胞或组织的等离子体光热效应引起的局部高温。尽管具有各种形态的 AuNPs 已显示出光热转换能力，但它们在光热治疗中的性能仍存在争议。为了揭示具有最有前途的 PPTT 性能的 AuNP，本研究合成了三种常用的金纳米结构：金纳米球 (AuNSs)、金纳米棒 (AuNRs)、金纳米星 (AuNSTs)，并具有相同的 mPEG-SH 表面改性。评估并比较了相应的PTT性能和抗肿瘤作用。发现所有AuNPs都可以通过局域表面等离子体共振效应将808 nm近红外（NIR）激光能量转化为热量，其中AuNSTs表现出最高的光热转换效率。体外细胞实验表明，所有PEG化的AuNPs都具有低细胞毒性，并且AuNSTs在10 min 300 mW/cm的相同条件下诱导局部高温的能力最强²近红外光照射。因此，在相同的表面修饰下，AuNSTs 应该是同类产品中最有前途的 PTT 治疗剂。