Chinese Optics Letters, Volume. 8, Issue 10, 940(2010)

Uptake of transferrin-conjugated quantum dots in single living cells

Danni Chen1,2, Gaixia Xu2, Bahi Ahmed Ali3,4, Ken-Tye Yong5, Cuihong Zhou3, Xiaomei Wang3, Junle Qu2, Paras N. Prasad6, and Hanben Niu2
Author Affiliations
  • 1College of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
  • 2Institute of Optoelectronics, Key Lab of Optoelectronics Devices and Systems of Ministry of Education/Guangdong Province, Shenzhen Key Lab of Biomedicine Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
  • 3College of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
  • 4Mubarak City for Scientific Research and Technology Applications, New Borg Al-Arab City, Alexandria 21934, Egypt
  • 5School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore
  • 6Institute for Laser, Photonics and Biophotonics, State University of New York at Buffalo, NY 14260-3000, USA
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    We study the uptake and distribution of transferrin (Tf)-conjugated CdSe/CdS/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) in single living HeLa cells with both fluorescence confocal microscopy and three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction technique. By increasing the co-incubation time or the dosage of QDs-Tf, we find that the uptake of QDs-Tf bioconjugates in the cells increases correspondingly, but with different uptake rates. Additionally, the distribution of QDs-Tf, in single live HeLa cells is time dependent. To our knowledge, this is the first study on quantitatively analyzing the uptake and distribution of bioconjugated QDs in single living cells. Such QDs nanoplatform can be further modified for developing biomedical evaluation tool in cancer diagnosis and targeted drug delivery.

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    Danni Chen, Gaixia Xu, Bahi Ahmed Ali, Ken-Tye Yong, Cuihong Zhou, Xiaomei Wang, Junle Qu, Paras N. Prasad, Hanben Niu. Uptake of transferrin-conjugated quantum dots in single living cells[J]. Chinese Optics Letters, 2010, 8(10): 940

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    Paper Information

    Received: Jun. 17, 2010

    Accepted: --

    Published Online: Oct. 19, 2010

    The Author Email:

    DOI:10.3788/COL20100810.0940

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