Quantifying spectral changes experienced by plasmonic nanoparticles in a cellular environment to inform biomedical nanoparticle design.

ABSTRACT: Metal nanoparticles (NPs) scatter and absorb light in precise, designable ways, making them agile candidates for a variety of biomedical applications. When NPs are introduced to a physiological environment and interact with cells, their physicochemical properties can change as proteins adsorb on their surface and they agglomerate within intracellular endosomal vesicles. Since the plasmonic properties of metal NPs are dependent on their geometry and local environment, these physicochemical changes may alter the NPs' plasmonic properties, on which applications such as plasmonic photothermal therapy and photonic gene circuits are based. Here we systematically study and quantify how metal NPs' optical spectra change upon introduction to a cellular environment in which NPs agglomerate within en

SUBMITTER: Chen AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4164329 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature