Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices, School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Small. 2010 Jan;6(2):247-55. doi: 10.1002/smll.200901014.
Flow cytometry is one of the gold-standard techniques used in clinical medicine for quantitative immunoassaying. The continuous development of its probes, commonly fluorescent nanoparticles, is important. Lately, the introduction of quantitative multiplexed immunoassay has challenged the use of nanoparticles as probes. Functionalized fluorescent silica-based magnetic nanowires are investigated under flow cytometry as a novel probe category. The preparation and full characterization of these multimodal nanowires is reported and compared to those of silica-based magnetic nanoparticles by flow cytometry. Full characterization includes transmission electron microscopy and fluorescence microscopy imaging, flow cytometric assaying, superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetization, and Mössbauer spectroscopy measurements. This work shows that loaded silica nanowires have intrinsic geometrical advantages when compared to similar spherical particles due to their unique "flow cytometry fingerprint" when utilized as magnetic carriers for immunodetection applications. These advantages account for a 17% yield in detecting the functional binding between THP-1 and ICAM-1, by utilizing a much lower concentration than that required for the nanoparticles.
流式细胞术是临床医学中用于定量免疫分析的金标准技术之一。其探针（通常为荧光纳米颗粒）的不断发展非常重要。最近，定量多重免疫分析的引入对纳米颗粒作为探针的应用提出了挑战。本文研究了功能化荧光二氧化硅基磁性纳米线作为一种新型探针类别在流式细胞术中的应用。本文报道了这些多模态纳米线的制备和全面表征，并通过流式细胞术与基于二氧化硅的磁性纳米颗粒进行了比较。全面表征包括透射电子显微镜和荧光显微镜成像、流式细胞术检测、超导量子干涉装置（SQUID）磁化和穆斯堡尔光谱测量。这项工作表明，与类似的球形颗粒相比，负载二氧化硅纳米线具有内在的几何优势，因为当它们被用作免疫检测应用的磁性载体时，它们具有独特的“流式细胞术指纹”。这些优势使得在检测 THP-1 和 ICAM-1 之间的功能结合时，能够以比使用纳米颗粒时低得多的浓度，获得 17%的检测效率。
