Photosensitivity of neurons enabled by cell-targeted gold nanoparticles.

ABSTRACT: Unmodified neurons can be directly stimulated with light to produce action potentials, but such techniques have lacked localization of the delivered light energy. Here we show that gold nanoparticles can be conjugated to high-avidity ligands for a variety of cellular targets. Once bound to a neuron, these particles transduce millisecond pulses of light into heat, which changes membrane capacitance, depolarizing the cell and eliciting action potentials. Compared to non-functionalized nanoparticles, ligand-conjugated nanoparticles highly resist convective washout and enable photothermal stimulation with lower delivered energy and resulting temperature increase. Ligands targeting three different membrane proteins were tested; all showed similar activity and washout resistance. This suggests t

SUBMITTER: Carvalho-de-Souza JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4393361 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature