Fig. 5

Biological activity of RA released from RAn-CB[6] @AuNRs outside leukemia cells. a Schematic representation of the in vitro release experiment without NIR light exposure outside cells in a leukaemia reporter cell line. b Activity of RA1 or RA2-CB[6] @AuNR (50 µg/mL) supernatant (SN) without irradiation to assess the leakage from CB[6] @AuNRs and activity of resuspended pellet (R. pellet) without or with NIR light activation after 4 h of incubation (780 nm, 2 min, 2 W/cm²). c Schematic representation of the in vitro release experiment with NIR light exposure outside cells in a leukaemia reporter cell line. RAn-CB[6] @AuNRs (50 µg/mL) were irradiated by a NIR laser (780 nm, 2 W/cm²) for 2 min after which the suspension was centrifuged and the activation of the leukemic reporter cell line (luciferase measurements) was measured both in the supernatant (SN) and resuspended AuNR pellet (R. pellet). d Activity of RA1 or RA2 in the supernatant and resuspended pellet evaluated by the leukemic reporter cell line. Cells were cultured with soluble RA1 (1 µM), RA2 (1 µM), SN and resuspended pellet for 24 h, followed by luciferase luminescence reading. In B and D, results are average ± SEM (n = 3). Statistical analysis was performed using One-Way Anova followed by Tukey’s post hoc test. *, **** denotes statistical significance (P < 0.05, P < 0.0001)