Despite the wealth of information obtained from biochemical and structural studies of nucleic acids and proteins, very little is known about the movement and formation of protein complex dynamics within the living cell.  Dynamic, real-time imaging of molecules in vivo is required to monitor the formation, dissociation, and movement of biomolecular complexes and metabolites in living cells.  Unfortunately, due to limitations of current imaging methods progress in this area has been limited.  Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) based nanoprobes are designed and tested to monitor targeted metabolic species inside single living cells or flow systems such blood capillaries.  Strong Raman scattering molecules are immobilized on the surface of the nanoparticles and the SERS spectra of these reporters are used to probe the surrounding chemical environment.  A series of nanoparticles have been synthesized and the ability of these nanostructures to quantitatively measure cellular metabolites with high temporal resolution is presented.

Development of surface-enhanced Raman scattering based optical probes for in vivo chemical detection

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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