Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Chemin des Verdiers 4, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
Nanoscale. 2020 Sep 7;12(33):17362-17372. doi: 10.1039/d0nr03330h. Epub 2020 Aug 13.
Evaluating nanomaterial uptake and association by cells is relevant for in vitro studies related to safe-by-design approaches, nanomedicine or applications in photothermal therapy. However, standard analytical techniques are time-consuming, involve complex sample preparation or include labelling of the investigated sample system with e.g. fluorescent dyes. Here, we explore lock-in thermography to analyse and compare the association trends of epithelial cells, mesothelial cells, and macrophages exposed to gold nanoparticles and multi-walled carbon nanotubes over 24 h. The presence of nanomaterials in the cells was confirmed by dark field and transmission electron microscopy. The results obtained by lock-in thermography for gold nanoparticles were validated with inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry; with data collected showing a good agreement between both techniques. Furthermore, we demonstrate the detection and quantification of carbon nanotube-cell association in a straightforward, non-destructive, and non-intrusive manner without the need to label the carbon nanotubes. Our results display the first approach in utilizing thermography to assess the carbon nanotube amount in cellular environments.
评估细胞对纳米材料的摄取和结合对于与安全设计方法、纳米医学或光热疗法相关的体外研究非常重要。然而，标准分析技术耗时、涉及复杂的样品制备，或者需要用例如荧光染料对被研究的样品系统进行标记。在这里，我们探索锁相热成像技术来分析和比较上皮细胞、间皮细胞和巨噬细胞在 24 小时内暴露于金纳米粒子和多壁碳纳米管后的结合趋势。通过暗场和透射电子显微镜证实了细胞中纳米材料的存在。通过电感耦合等离子体光学发射光谱法对金纳米粒子的锁相热成像结果进行了验证；收集到的数据表明两种技术之间具有良好的一致性。此外，我们展示了以一种简单、非破坏性和非侵入性的方式直接检测和定量碳纳米管与细胞的结合，而无需对碳纳米管进行标记。我们的结果首次提出了利用热成像技术评估细胞环境中碳纳米管数量的方法。
