BSA-assisted synthesis of ultrasmall gallic acid-Fe(III) coordination polymer nanoparticles for cancer theranostics.

Protein-related nanotheranostic agents hold great promise as tools to serve many clinical applications. Proteins such as BSA are used to regulate the synthesis of nondegradable inorganic nanoparticles (NPs). To fully employ the potential of such proteins, a new type of biosafe nanotheranostic agent must be designed to optimize BSA as a biomineralization agent. Here, a straightforward BSA-assisted biomineralization method was developed to prepare gallic acid (GA)-Fe(III) coordination polymer NPs. BSA-coated GA-Fe (GA-Fe@BSA) NPs were ultrasmall (3.5 nm) and showed good biocompatibility, a lower