Molecular extraction in single live cells by sneaking in and out magnetic nanomaterials

Abstract

Extraction of intracellular molecules is crucial to the study of cellular signal pathways. Disruption of the cellular membrane remains the established method to release intracellular contents, which inevitably terminates the time course of biological processes. Also, conventional laboratory extractions mostly use bulky materials that ignore the heterogeneity of each cell. In this work, we developed magnetized carbon nanotubes that can be sneaked into and out of cell bodies under a magnetic force. Using a testing model with overexpression of GFP, the nanotubes successfully transported the intracellular GFP out at the single-cell level. The confined nanoscale invasiveness did not change cell viability or proliferation. This study presents the proof of concept of a previously unidentified real-time and single-cell approach to investigate cellular biology, signal messengers, and therapeutic effects with nanomaterials.single-cell method | real-time detection | drug screening

Nondestructive nanostraw intracellular sampling for longitudinal cell monitoring

“…nanotubes coated with poly-L-tyrosine to extract GFP from a cell culture, with better than 70% cell viability (28). These promising results indicate insertion and sampling at a single time-point is possible.…”

Investigation of ac-magnetic field stimulated nanoelectroporation of magneto-electric nano-drug-carrier inside CNS cells

“…The potential benefits of electroporation for targeted biomedical application have been explored for transporting nano/micro molecules6, DNA7, genes8, plasmids9, antibodies10, and specific drug5 into the cells11. Electroporation has shown advantages over physical methods of therapeutic delivery such as micro-injection, gene gun, laser irradiation, and sonoporation1213. Various methodologies including high voltage electric pulse14, strong electric field15, focused laser16, electroplating17, and magnetic field1819 are being used to perform electroporation for in-vitro and in-vivo applications2021.…”

Multifunctional carbon nanomaterial hybrids for magnetic manipulation and targeting

“…In contrast, magnetic MWCNTs have been used for extraction of biomolecules from living cells without affecting their viability and proliferation [80]. CNTs has the capacity to cross the plasma membrane through passive diffusion, like a nanoneedle [3,81].…”