Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, 303 Furnas Hall, The University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, New York 14260-4200, USA.
Integr Biol (Camb). 2013 Jan;5(1):144-50. doi: 10.1039/c2ib20100c.
The development of multimodal nanoparticle platforms is desirable for cancer nanotechnology applications. Creating single nanoplatforms with both plasmonic and photoluminescent optical properties has remained a challenge, because combining discrete entities each having one of these unique properties typically results in the attenuation of one of the desirable properties. Here, we overcome challenges associated with combining plasmonic gold with luminescent silicon nanocrystals for biological imaging applications by incorporating multiple silicon quantum dots into the core of a micelle and then depositing gold on the surface of the nanostructure. Within the newly developed nanoconstruct, the gold shell exhibits plasmonic light scattering properties useful for dark field imaging, while the silicon nanocrystals maintain their photoluminescence. The result is a nanoplatform with both plasmonic and luminescent properties in a useful form. Multimodal imaging of pancreatic cancer cells demonstrates overlap of luminescence from the silicon quantum dots with light scattering from the gold shell. This approach can be tailored to other formulations and address the challenge of fluorescence attenuation that is typically observed when quantum dots are combined with plasmonic materials. The usefulness of these particles may eventually extend beyond multimodal imaging to include photothermal treatment.
开发用于癌症纳米技术应用的多模态纳米颗粒平台是可取的。创建具有等离子体和光致发光光学特性的单一纳米平台仍然是一个挑战，因为组合具有这些独特特性之一的离散实体通常会导致一个理想特性的衰减。在这里，我们通过将多个硅量子点纳入胶束的核心，然后在纳米结构的表面沉积金，克服了将等离子体金与发光硅纳米晶体结合用于生物成像应用的挑战。在新开发的纳米结构中，金壳表现出用于暗场成像的等离子体光散射特性，而硅纳米晶体保持其光致发光。结果是一种具有等离子体和发光特性的纳米平台，以有用的形式存在。胰腺癌多模态成像显示硅量子点的荧光与金壳的光散射重叠。这种方法可以针对其他配方进行调整，并解决当量子点与等离子体材料结合时通常观察到的荧光衰减的挑战。这些颗粒的有用性最终可能会扩展到多模态成像之外，包括光热治疗。
