You Jin-Oh, Liu Yu-San, Liu Yu-Chuan, Joo Kye-Il, Peng Ching-An
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1211, USA.
Int J Nanomedicine. 2006;1(1):59-64. doi: 10.2147/nano.2006.1.1.59.
Developing methods to label viruses with fluorescent moieties has its merits in elucidating viral infection mechanisms and exploring novel antiviral therapeutics. Fluorescent quantum dots (QDs), an emerging probe for biological imaging and medical diagnostics, were employed in this study to tag retrovirus encoding enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) genes. Electrostatic repulsion forces generated from both negatively charged retrovirus and QDs were neutralized by cationic Polybrene, forming colloidal complexes of QDs-virus. By examining the level of EGFP expression in 3T3 fibroblast cells treated with QDs-tagged retroviruses for 24 hours, the infectivity of retrovirus incorporated with QDs was shown to be only slightly decreased. Moreover, the imaging of QDs can be detected in the cellular milieu. In summary, the mild method developed here makes QDs-tagged virus a potential imaging probe for direct tracking the infection process and monitoring distribution of viral particles in infected cells.
开发用荧光部分标记病毒的方法在阐明病毒感染机制和探索新型抗病毒疗法方面具有其优点。荧光量子点（QDs）是一种用于生物成像和医学诊断的新兴探针，在本研究中用于标记编码增强型绿色荧光蛋白（EGFP）基因的逆转录病毒。带负电荷的逆转录病毒和量子点产生的静电排斥力被阳离子聚凝胺中和，形成量子点-病毒的胶体复合物。通过检测用量子点标记的逆转录病毒处理24小时的3T3成纤维细胞中EGFP的表达水平，结果表明与量子点结合的逆转录病毒的感染性仅略有下降。此外，在细胞环境中可以检测到量子点的成像。总之，这里开发的温和方法使量子点标记的病毒成为直接跟踪感染过程和监测病毒颗粒在受感染细胞中分布的潜在成像探针。
