Cell-to-cell heterogeneous association of prostate cancer with gold nanoparticles elucidated by single-cell inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

•A sensitive method is proposed to quantify AuNPs in prostate cancer single cells.•The proposed strategy was used in single-cell analysis and interactions cell-AuNP.•AuNP association by PC-3 cells at low concentrations is revealed for the first time.•The cell-associated amount of AuNPs for the PC-3 cell line was highly heterogeneous.•A more in-depth analysis opens new perspectives to understand NP-cell interactions.