Micro‐ and Nano‐Devices for Studying Subcellular Biology

Abstract

Cells are complex machines whose behaviors arise from their internal collection of dynamically interacting organelles, supramolecular complexes, and cytoplasmic chemicals. The current understanding of the nature by which subcellular biology produces cell‐level behaviors is limited by the technological hurdle of measuring the large number (>103) of small‐sized (<1 μm) heterogeneous organelles and subcellular structures found within each cell. In this review, the emergence of a suite of micro‐ and nano‐technologies for studying intracellular biology on the scale of organelles is described. Devices that use microfluidic and microelectronic components for 1) extracting and isolating subcellular structures from cells and lysate; 2) analyzing the physiology of individual organelles; and 3) recreating subcellular assembly and functions in vitro, are described. The authors envision that the continued development of single organelle technologies and analyses will serve as a foundation for organelle systems biology and will allow new insight into fundamental and clinically relevant biological questions.

Nanorobots with Hybrid Biomembranes for Simultaneous Degradation of Toxic Microorganism

“…To address these challenges, a cellular membrane cloaking technique has recently been proposed as a unique surface construction tool from the perspectives of physiology and immunology, demonstrating effectiveness in boosting the in vivo activity of synthesized micro/nanocarriers. 4 Advances in Materials Science and Engineering…”

“…ese qualities, when combined, enable the robots to execute a wide range of activities in a variety of fields, such as cell disruption, active medication administration, noninvasive surgical, environment monitoring, and nanoscale manufacturing and monitoring. Only with the rapid growth of micro-and nanodevices in biology and medicine, developing robots with biodegradable and bioinspired interfaces for favorable interactions and interfaces involving basic biological organisms has become critical [4]. Manufactured nanorobots, for instance, have lately been merged into motile organisms including sperm and bacteria.…”

Accessible detection of SARS-CoV-2 through molecular nanostructures and automated microfluidics

“…Finally, with the demonstrated robustness, beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic, eSIREN could be further expanded for accessible detection of other infectious diseases and improved patient stratification in resource-limited settings ( Wu et al, 2020 ; Zhu et al, 2019 ). Technical improvements, through the integration of advanced microfluidics ( Morikawa et al, 2020 ; Choi et al, 2019 ; Siedlik et al, 2021 ; Zhao et al, 2019 ) and arrayed sensor configuration ( Lim et al, 2019 ; Jeong et al, 2019 ), could facilitate highly-parallel and large-scale testing.…”

Defining Local Chemical Conditions in Magnetosomes of Magnetotactic Bacteria

“…Determining these chemical specificities is critical to understand the biological reactions they host, their function(s), as well as for designing new technologies through synthetic biology approaches 4 . Successful investigations have characterized the pH and redox potential (Eh) homeostasis in eukaryotic organelles 5 , mainly through methodologies involving fluorescent dyes or probes and subsequent sample imaging [5][6][7][8][9][10] . Similarly, fluorescent methodologies have been used to quantify and map incorporation of calcium and magnesium in intracellular structures for precipitation of biominerals [10][11][12] .…”

“…Determining these chemical specificities is critical to understand the biological reactions they host and their function(s) as well as for designing new technologies through synthetic biology approaches . Successful investigations have characterized the pH and redox potential (Eh) homeostasis in eukaryotic organelles, mainly through methodologies involving fluorescent dyes or probes and subsequent sample imaging. − Similarly, fluorescence methodologies have been used to quantify and map incorporation of calcium and magnesium in intracellular structures for precipitation of biominerals. − However, the spatial resolution of these techniques prevents their use for small bacterial and archaeal organelles that can be as small as 50 nm in diameter or less. Alternative approaches must therefore be defined to constrain local chemical conditions in prokaryotic microorganisms.…”