22 Jan 17:57
by Chuanlai Xu,
rui gao,
liguang xu,
changlong hao,
hua kuang
Where's the metal? Near‐infrared circular polarized light activates chiral nanoprobes for intracellular detection and quantification of three diffent metal ions. The utility of this chiral nanoprobe, which is based on DNAzymes, could be extended to the analysis of other metal ions in biological science applications.
Abstract
Here, we construct a handedness‐dependent circular polarized light (CPL)‐activated chiral satellite assemblies formed from DNAzymes and spiny platinum modified with gold nanorods and upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), enabling the simultaneous quantitative analysis of multiple divalent metal ions in living cells. The chiral nanoprobes, in coordination with their corresponding divalent metal ions under 980 nm left circular polarized (LCP) light illumination, served as an in situ confocal bioimaging platform for the quantitation of the given intracellular metal ions. The limit of detection (LOD) of the chiral probes in living cells is 1.1 nmol/106 cells, 1.02 nmol/106 cells and 0.45 nmol/106 cells for Zn2+, Mg2+, and Cu2+, respectively.
13 Feb 23:28
by Yongxian Xu, Luxin Peng, Sicong Wang, Anqi Wang, Ruirui Ma, Ying Zhou, Jiahe Yang, De-en Sun, Wei Lin, Xing Chen, Peng Zou
Abstract
Membrane voltage is an important biophysical signal that underlies intercellular electrical communications. A fluorescent voltage indicator is presented that enables the investigation of electrical signaling at high spatial resolution. The method is built upon the site-specific modification of microbial rhodopsin proteins with organic fluorophores, resulting in a hybrid indicator scaffold that is one of the most sensitive and fastest orange-colored voltage indicators developed to date. We applied this technique to optically map electrical connectivity in cultured cells, which revealed gap junction-mediated long-range coupling that spanned over hundreds of micrometers.
The fast and the sensitive: A hybrid strategy employing site-specific protein modification techniques produced a palette of fluorescent membrane voltage indicators with sub-millisecond response kinetics. These indicators enable the optical mapping of electrical communications among cells at high resolution.
