Abstract
The need for new therapeutic approaches in the treatment of challenging diseases such as cancer, which often consists of a highly heterogeneous and complex population of cells, brought up the idea of analyzing single cells. The development of novel techniques to analyze single cells has been intensively studied to fully understand specific alternations inducing abnormalities in cellular function. One of the techniques used for single cell analysis is surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) in which a noble metal nanoparticle is used to enhance Raman scattering. Due to its low toxicity and biocompatibility, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are commonly preferred as SERS substrates in single cell analysis. The intracellular uptake, localization and toxicity issues of AuNPs are the critical points for interpretation of data since the obtained SERS signals originate from molecules in close vicinity to AuNPs that are taken up by the cells. In this review, the AuNP–living cell interactions, cellular uptake and toxicity of AuNPs in relation to their physicochemical properties, and surface-enhanced Raman scattering from single cells are discussed.
Highlights
Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are noble metal particles with tunable optical properties, which make them unique nanostructures in several applications including sensing, imaging and drug targeting.The optical property of the gold due to its strong interaction with electromagnetic radiation in the visible region of the spectrum makes it one of the unique noble metals
El-Said et al designed a sensitive SERS-active substrate surface by placing ordered gold nano-dots on indium tin oxide (ITO) surface to overcome the problems associated with low reproducibility and high variability depending on intracellular uptake of
We aimed to review the single-cell analysis with SERS by stressing the interaction of living cells with AuNPs, which are commonly used SERS substrates
Summary
Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are noble metal particles with tunable optical properties, which make them unique nanostructures in several applications including sensing, imaging and drug targeting. AuNPs used in in vitro cell studies are usually prepared in the size range of 2–100 nm mainly with wet-synthesis methods [5,6,7,8,9,10]. Since the goal is to use them in living cell studies, is important to use a mainly with nontoxic reducing agent. Agent such as tri-sodium sodium shaped AuNPs but it is toxic for living cells [11,12,13]. Since the goal is to use them in living cell studies, it is important to use a after surface modifications. The goal with surface modification is either to reduce the toxicity or to attach functional orand coatings for targeting delivery or both [14,15,16,17,18,19].
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