Prostatic Histopathologic and Electron Microscopic Changes Following Intraperitoneal ‎Injection of Gold Nanorods to Male Albino Rats

The field of nanomedicine has been developed to achieve enhanced and targeted delivery of biomolecules including nanoparticles. Despite their convenience, metal nanoparticles confront strenuous challenges including toxicity, low translocation ability into cells and clearance from the organs. This study aims to detect the in vivo cellular interaction between prostatic tissues and gold nanorods on the prostatic tissue and to detect the short-term effect of the gold nanorods to reach prostatic tissue by histopathologic and electron microscopic examinations. Forty-eight adult male albino rats (180-200 g) were used. They were divided into 2 equal groups. The 1^st group received injection of saline 0.9% (i.P); while, the 2^nd group received 1 ml of 300 μg/kg body weight of AuNRs. On days 1, 3, 7, and 14 post-treatment, six animals from each group were sacrificed and the prostate was dissected and cut into two sections for performing histopathologic and EM study. It has been found that the short term effect of gold nanorods induced pyknotic and apoptotic changes as well as presence of phagocytosis in the prostate tissues. From this study, it could be concluded that gold nanorods have reached prostate tissue; therefore, it could be helpful in upcoming days to establish a concept on the role of gold nanorods in the management of cellular biological behaviors‎.