Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Nanoscience (IMDEA Nanoscience) and Nanobiotechnology Unit Associated to the National Center for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), C/Faraday 9, 28049, Madrid, Spain.
Department of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Granada. Av. Fuentenueva s/n, 18071, Granada, Spain.
Small. 2017 May;13(17). doi: 10.1002/smll.201603784. Epub 2017 Mar 3.
The combination of complementary techniques to characterize materials at the nanoscale is crucial to gain a more complete picture of their structure, a key step to design and fabricate new materials with improved properties and diverse functions. Here it is shown that correlative atomic force microscopy (AFM) and localization-based super-resolution microscopy is a useful tool that provides insight into the structure and emissive properties of fluorescent β-lactoglobulin (βLG) amyloid-like fibrils. These hybrid materials are made by functionalization of βLG with organic fluorophores and quantum dots, the latter being relevant for the production of 1D inorganic nanostructures templated by self-assembling peptides. Simultaneous functionalization of βLG fibers by QD655 and QD525 allows for correlative AFM and two-color super-resolution fluorescence imaging of these hybrid materials. These experiments allow the combination of information about the topography and number of filaments that compose a fibril, as well as the emissive properties and nanoscale spatial distribution of the attached fluorophores. This study represents an important step forward in the characterization of multifunctionalized hybrid materials, a key challenge in nanoscience.
互补技术的组合用于对纳米尺度的材料进行特征化，这对于更全面地了解它们的结构至关重要，而这是设计和制造具有改进性能和多种功能的新材料的关键步骤。本文展示了相关的原子力显微镜（AFM）和基于定位的超分辨率显微镜是一种有用的工具，可以深入了解荧光β-乳球蛋白（βLG）类淀粉样原纤维的结构和发光性质。这些杂化材料是通过将βLG 与有机荧光团和量子点进行功能化而制成的，后者对于由自组装肽模板制备的一维无机纳米结构的生产具有重要意义。QD655 和 QD525 对βLG 纤维的同时功能化允许对这些杂化材料进行相关的 AFM 和双色超分辨率荧光成像。这些实验允许结合关于组成原纤维的细丝的数量和形貌的信息，以及附着的荧光团的发光性质和纳米尺度空间分布。这项研究代表了在多功能化杂化材料的表征方面迈出的重要一步，这是纳米科学中的一个关键挑战。
