Quantification of the levels of hMT-IIa transcript in HeLa cells after treatment with ssDNA-functionalized nanoparticles.

Induced samples were treated with 12.5 µM CdCl2 (+Cd). HeLa cells were transfected with 5 nM unfunctionalized (−), 5 nM control (C) or 5 nM hMTIIa (MT)-specific ssDNA functionalized gold nanoparticles. The level of hMTIIa gene expression (normalized to B2M) in HeLa cells transfected with unfunctionalized (−)gold nanoparticles was normalized to 100% and all other fold inductions were expressed relative to this. The error bars were calculated as 1 standard error of the mean each way and represented as a percentage of the activity.