Magnetofluorescent Nanoprobe for Multimodal and Multicolor Bioimaging

Abstract

Although, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) have extensively been used as a contrasting agent for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the lack of intrinsic fluorescence restricted their application as a multimodal probe, especially in combination with light microscopy. In Addition, the bigger size of the particle renders them incompetent for bioimaging of small organelles. Herein, we report, not only the synthesis of ultrasmall carbon containing magneto-fluorescent SPIONs with size ∼5 nm, but also demonstrate its capability as a multicolor imaging probe. Using MCF-7 and HeLa cell lines, we show that the SPIONs can provide high contrast mulicolor images of the cytoplasm from blue to red region. Further, single particle level photon count data revealed that the SPIONs could efficaciously be utilized in localization based super resolution microscopy in future.

Review on Nanoparticles and Nanostructured Materials: Bioimaging, Biosensing, Drug Delivery, Tissue Engineering, Antimicrobial, and Agro-Food Applications

“…Drugs can be physically or chemically adsorbed into the nanoparticles surface through various adsorption methods, or they can be loaded on nanoparticles during their production [ 83 , 85 ]. The drug and carrier properties, such as drug-carrier solubility, molecular weight, drug-carrier chemical interaction, and carrier size, will determine the drug loading efficacy on/into the carrier [ 83 , 86 ]. The drug release rate from the nanoparticlesis mainly influenced by (1) the release of the adsorbed drug from the surface of the nanoparticles; (2) the drug diffusion from thenanoparticles; and (3) the nanoparticle erosion and drug diffusion from the nanoparticles.…”