Abstract
The measuring of nanoparticle toxicity faces an important limitation since it is based on metrics exposure, the concentration at which cells are exposed instead the true concentration inside the cells. In vitro studies of nanomaterials would benefit from the direct measuring of the true intracellular dose of nanoparticles. The objective of the present study was to state whether the intracellular detection of nanodiamonds is possible by measuring the refractive index. Based on optical diffraction tomography of treated live cells, the results show that unlabeled nanoparticles can be detected and localized inside cells. The results were confirmed by fluorescence measurements. Optical diffraction tomography paves the way to measuring the true intracellular concentrations and the localization of nanoparticles which will improve the dose-response paradigm of pharmacology and toxicology in the field of nanomaterials.
Highlights
Imaging of living cells in their natural environment is essential to study biological processes
A wide variety of nanoparticles has been produced, they are finely characterized in size, surface charges and composition, they are immediately bounded by proteins and ions soon after their addition to biological fluids, forming a protein corona preventing the prediction of their biological performance
The present study demonstrates that it is possible to localize nanoparticles inside cells based on the changes of refractive index
Summary
Imaging of living cells in their natural environment is essential to study biological processes. The three-dimensional spatial arrangement of cell structures is essential for the living processes. It is possible to characterize cells using their refractive indices under label-free conditions. Numerous studies have emphasized the importance of the refractive index of biological materials for fundamental biology and biomedical diagnostics. The refractive index is a biophysical parameter correlated with mechanical, electrical, and optical properties of the cells [6,7,8,9,10]. The toxicity of an NP is measured on proliferating cells in the presence of increasing concentrations of NP. The concentration at which cells stop to proliferate is considered toxic. It will not be regarded as toxic, it is not wrong, since cells will not be altered by these NPs, except that
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