A novel imaging tool; fluorescent organosilica nanoparticles

Abstract

The new type of silica nanoparticles as a novel imaging tool, organosilica nanoparticles, has been developed by Nakamura and colleagues. The nanoparticles can be synthesized in a few of simple reactions and have a good size and dispersibility. Organosilica nanoparticles contain fluorescent dyes and are superior in fluorescence intensity to the conventional dye. These nanoparticles have SH groups on their surface, which makes it possible to conjugate them with antibodies and other protein molecules. We synthesized organosilica nanoparticles whose diameter is 100 nm including fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) or Rhodamine B and then conjugate these nanoparticles with an anti‐mouse IgG antibody and so on. We applied these conjugated antibodies to immunofluorescence staining to mouse brain sections. We also discuss this novel imaging tool to detect many biomolecules.