Engineering bioconjugated gold nanospheres and gold nanorods as label-free plasmon scattering probes for ultrasensitive multiplex dark-field imaging of cancer cells

• Main Authors: Gong, Tianxun, Olivo, Malini, Dinish, U. S., Goh, Douglas, Kong, Kien Voon, Yong, Ken-Tye
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science::Medicine::Biomedical engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/100529; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/24122
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In this paper, we proposed the use of gold nanoparticles as plasmon scattering probes for dark-field multiplex imaging of live cancer cells. By carefully engineering the surfaces, aqueous dispersions of anti-EGFR antibody-conjugated gold nanospheres and gold nanorods are prepared. We demonstrated the receptor-mediated delivery of antibody conjugated gold nanospheres and gold nanorods into EGFR receptor-positive oral squamous cell carcinoma cell line by using dark-field microscopy technique. Our result suggests that gold nanospheres and gold nanorods formulations could provide up to 7 types of plasmon scattering probes based on their tunability range with a 100 nm spectral separation in absorption bands.