Surface-enhanced Raman scattering dye-labeled Au nanoparticles for triplexed detection of leukemia and lymphoma cells and SERS flow cytometry.

The labeling of cell surface receptors by fluorescent markers is an established method for the identification of cell phenotype in both research and clinical settings. Fluorescence dye labeling has inherent constraints, most notably the upper limit of labels per cell that may be probed using a single excitation source, in addition to a physical limit to the number of broad emission spectra that can be distinctly collected within the visible wavelength region. SERS labeling has the potential to mitigate these shortfalls. Herein, antibody-targeted, PEG-coated surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) Au nanoparticles are used simultaneously to label three cell surface markers of interest on malignant B cells from the LY10 lymphoma cell line. The SERS probes were characterized by multiple methods to confirm their monodispersity and functionalization with both PEG and monoclonal antibodies. The specificity of the particles' cell labeling was demonstrated on both primary chronic lymphocytic leukemia and LY10 cells using SERS from cell suspensions and confocal Raman mapping, respectively. Fluorescence flow cytometry was employed to confirm the binding of SERS probes to LY10 over large cell populations, and the particles' SERS was collected directly from labeled cells using a commercial flow cytometer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of SERS flow cytometry from cells tagged with targeted SERS probes.