Plasmonic nanorod probes' journey inside plant cells for in vivo SERS sensing and multimodal imaging

Nanoparticle-based platforms are gaining strong interest in plant biology and bioenergy research to monitor and control biological processes in whole plants. However, monitoring of biomolecules using nanoparticles inside plant cells remains challenging due to the impenetrability of the plant cell wa...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nanoscale 2023-03, Vol.15 (13), p.6396-6407
Main Authors: Cupil-Garcia, Vanessa, Li, Joy Q, Norton, Stephen J, Odion, Ren A, Strobbia, Pietro, Menozzi, Luca, Ma, Chenshuo, Hu, Jianhong, Zentella, Rodolfo, Boyanov, Maxim I, Finfrock, Y Zou, Gursoy, Doga, Douglas, Deirdre Sholto, Yao, Junjie, Sun, Tai-Ping, Kemner, Kenneth M, Vo-Dinh, Tuan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Barriers
Bimetals
Biological activity
Biology
Biomolecules
Biomonitoring
Gold
Imaging
In vivo methods and tests
Infrared tracking
Metal Nanoparticles
Microscopy
Multimodal Imaging
Nanoparticles
Nanorods
Nanotubes
Plant biology
Plant Cells
Plasmonics
Silver
Spectrum Analysis, Raman - methods
Tobacco
X-ray fluorescence
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Nanoparticle-based platforms are gaining strong interest in plant biology and bioenergy research to monitor and control biological processes in whole plants. However, monitoring of biomolecules using nanoparticles inside plant cells remains challenging due to the impenetrability of the plant cell wall to nanoparticles beyond the exclusion limits (5-20 nm). To overcome this physical barrier, we have designed unique bimetallic silver-coated gold nanorods (AuNR@Ag) capable of entering plant cells, while conserving key plasmonic properties in the near-infrared (NIR). To demonstrate cellular internalization and tracking of the nanorods inside plant tissue, we used a comprehensive multimodal imaging approach that included transmission electron microscopy (TEM), confocal fluorescence microscopy, two-photon luminescence (TPL), X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XRF), and photoacoustics imaging (PAI). We successfully acquired SERS signals of nanorods inside plant cells of tobacco leaves. On the same leaf samples, we applied orthogonal imaging methods, TPL and PAI techniques for imaging of the nanorods. This study first demonstrates the intracellular internalization of AuNR@Ag inside whole plant systems for SERS analysis in tobacco cells. This work demonstrates the potential of this nanoplatform as a new nanotool for intracellular biosensing for plant biology.
ISSN:2040-3364
2040-3372
DOI:10.1039/d2nr06235f