Selective Probing and Imaging of Cells with Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes as Near-Infrared Fluorescent Molecules

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• 作者：Kevin Welsher ; Zhuang Liu ; Dan Daranciang ; Hongjie Dai
• 刊名：Nano Letters
• 出版年：2008
• 出版时间：February 2008
• 年：2008
• 卷：8
• 期：2
• 页码：586 - 590
• 全文大小：2174K
• 年卷期：v.8,no.2(February 2008)
• ISSN：1530-6992

文摘

Fluorescent molecules emitting in the near-infrared (NIR, wavelength ~0.8-2 m) are relatively scarce and have been actively sought forbiological applications because cells and tissues exhibit little auto-fluorescence in this region. Here, we report the use of semiconductingsingle-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) as near-infrared fluorescent tags for selective probing of cell surface receptors and cell imaging.Biologically inert SWNTs with polyethyleneglycol functionalization are conjugated to antibodies such as Rituxan to selectively recognize CD20cell surface receptor on B-cells with little nonspecific binding to negative T-cells and Herceptin to recognize HER2/neu positive breast cancercells. We image selective SWNT-antibody binding to cells by detecting the intrinsic NIR photoluminescence of nanotubes. We observe ultralowNIR autofluorescence for various cells, an advantageous feature over high autofluorescence and large variations between cells lines in thevisible. This establishes SWNTs as novel NIR fluorophors for sensitive and selective biological detections and imaging in vitro and potentiallyin vivo. Further, our results clearly show that the interactions between carbon nanotubes and living cells are strongly dependent on surfacefunctionalization of nanotubes.