Gold nanoparticles are widely exploited for biological and biotechnical applications owing to their stability, biocompatibility, and known effects on cellular behaviors. Many studies have focused on nanoparticles that are internalized into cells, but extracellular nanoparticles also can regulate cell behavior, a practice known as in-plane surface nanotopography. We demonstrated that nanobarriers composed of morphologically homogeneous gold nanospheres prolonged the mitotic (M) phase in the cervical cancer cell line HeLa without inducing apoptosis. The nanobarrier was formed by electrostatic deposition of nanospheres on a negatively charged, fibronectin-coated substrate. We tested the effects of differently sized nanospheres. Gold nanospheres 42 nm in diameter were found to be non-toxic, while 111 nm nanospheres induced the production of reactive oxygen species, resulting in apoptotic cell death and arrest of cytokinesis. When exposed to sufficient 83 nm gold nanospheres to fabricate a surface nanobarrier, the M phase was delayed but cells proceeded to cytokinesis and the G1 phase. Live-cell imaging showed that the M phase increased by 2.9 h, 2.4 times longer than in control cells. Biophysical analyses indicated that this could be attributed to the specific size of the nanobarrier that physically limited the growth area around the cell.
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