Arylated gold nanoparticles have no effect on the adipogenic differentiation of MG-63 cells nor regulate any key signaling pathway during the differentiation

OBJECTIVE: MG-63 cells that have osteoblastic and adipogenic differentiation potential were evaluated for internalization, and adipogenic differentiation in the presence and absence of the covalently functionalized aryl gold nanoparticles (AuNPs-C(6)H(4)-4-COOH). RESULTS: Inductively coupled plasma, flow cytometry and confocal microscopy analyses confirmed that gold nanoparticles were easily internalized by MG-63 cells. The MG-63 cells were differentiated into adipocytes without gold-aryl nanoparticles and with the gold-aryl nanoparticles at 5 µM concentration in both induction and maintenance media. The lipid content assay and the relative expressions of PPAR-γ, ADR1, GLUT1 and GLUT4 genes showed no significant variation with and without the gold nanoparticles treatment. Differential phosphorylation levels of 43 kinases phosphorylation sites were evaluated using the human phospho-kinase array to assess the effect of the gold nanoparticles on the signaling pathways during the differentiation. No kinase phosphorylation site was differentially phosphorylated with two or more folds after the nanoparticles treatment after the first day as well as at the end of MG-63 cells differentiation. The gold-aryl nanoparticles do not affect MG-63 cells differentiation into adipocytes neither do they affect any key signaling pathway. These properties make these gold nanoparticles suitable for future drug delivery and medical applications. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13104-021-05594-9.