Nanoparticle Based Analysis of Biomolecules, Cells and Tissue
Duncan Graham,
Professor/Director,
Strathclyde University
Metallic nanoparticles offer many opportunities in terms of detection including light scattering, surface plasmon resonance and surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). We are interested in the optical properties of metal nanoparticles and their potential application in a range of different biological studies. We can make use of the optical properties of nanoparticles in two ways.
1. The nanoparticle can act as an extrinsic label for a specific biomolecular target in the same way as a fluorescent label is used. The advantage of using the nanoparticle is its optical brightness (typically several orders of magnitude more than fluorophores) and the lack of background vibrational signals. Functionalisation of the nanoparticle with a specific targeting species such as an antibody or peptide aptamer allows this approach to be used in a wide range of studies including cell, tissue and in vivo analysis.
2. Nanoparticles can be designed to contain a specific recognition probe designed to cause a change in the aggregation status of the nanoparticles resulting in a discernible optical change when it interacts with its biomolecular target. This allows separation free analysis of specific biomolecular interactions and can be applied to a range of different probe/target interactions such as DNA-DNA, peptide-protein and sugar-protein.
We have been making use of nanoparticles in both of these approaches in conjunction with SERS which is an advanced vibrational spectroscopy. To demonstrate the applicability of the two different approaches examples will be given on the use of nanoparticles for cell imaging in two and three-dimensions, imaging of nanoparticles at centimetre depths through tissue and also their ability to report on biological molecules in vitro and in vivo.
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