Conjugates of semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) and antibodies have emerged as a promising bioprobes due to their great combination of QD's efficient fluorescence and the high specificity of antigen-antibody reactions. For further developments in this field, it is essential to understand the molecular conformation of the QD-antibody conjugates at the single-molecule scale. Here, we report on the direct imaging of QD-antibody conjugates at the single-molecule scale by using high-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM). Owing to the high spatiotemporal resolution of HS-AFM, we observed the dynamic splitting of individual antibodies during the conjugation process. QD-antibody conjugates were also clearly visualized at the single-molecule scale details. Several important features were even discovered through dynamic observation of the QD-antibody conjugates. We observed an intermediate state of conjugation, where the antibodies attached and detached to QDs repeatedly. We also revealed that the attached antibodies were not steady but drastically fluctuated in their recognition areas due to the Brownian motion. We also demonstrated that HS-AFM observation is useful for the quantitative analysis of fabricated conjugates.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.colsurfb.2018.04.015 | DOI Listing |
Int J Mol Sci
January 2025
Department of Neurological Surgery and the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33136, USA.
Interleukin (IL)-1β is a pro-inflammatory cytokine whose levels are increased in the brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Despite the role of IL-1β in the pathology of AD, the fact that it is expressed at very low levels makes it a challenging cytokine to measure, hence limiting its potential use as a reliable biomarker. Moreover, being able to accurately and reliably measure the levels of IL-1 β in blood makes it possible to evaluate this cytokine as a potential biomarker of the inflammatory response in AD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMedicina (Kaunas)
January 2025
Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Riga East University Hospital, LV-1038 Riga, Latvia.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory, autoimmune, and neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system. The disease can manifest and progress with both physical and cognitive symptoms, affecting the patient's daily activities. The aim of our study was to investigate the correlation between functional status, cognitive functions, and neurofilament light chain levels in plasma in MS patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
The crowded bacterial cytoplasm is composed of biomolecules that span several orders of magnitude in size and electrical charge. This complexity has been proposed as the source of the rich spatial organization and apparent anomalous diffusion of intracellular components, although this has not been tested directly. Here, we use biplane microscopy to track the 3D motion of self-assembled bacterial genetically encoded multimeric nanoparticles (bGEMs) with tunable size (20 to 50 nm) and charge (-3,240 to +2,700 e) in live cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Phys Chem Lett
January 2025
MOE Key Laboratory for Non-equilibrium Synthesis and Modulation of Condensed Matter, School of Physics, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
The ultrafast excited-state dynamics of endohedral fullerenes are crucial in their photophysical and photochemical processes when they are employed as photovoltaic devices, photocatalytic devices, and single-molecule devices. In this study, by employing the non-adiabatic molecular dynamics simulations based on the time-dependent Kohn-Sham (TD-KS) method, we theoretically studied the size effect on ultrafast excited-state decay dynamics of the photoexcited Be electron in endohedral fullerenes Be@C (2 = 60, 70, and 80). These excited-state decay dynamics, which involve the charge-transfer process, occur in an ultrafast time scale of about 3 ps.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiosensors (Basel)
January 2025
Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chongqing 400714, China.
In recent years, environmental and food safety have garnered substantial focus due to their intimate connection with human health. Numerous biosensors have been developed for identifying deleterious compounds; however, these biosensors reveal certain limitations. Nanopore sensors, featuring nano-scaled pore size, have demonstrated outstanding performance in terms of rapidity, sensitivity, and selectivity as a single-molecule technique for environmental and food surveillance.
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