Tumor identification portable Raman detection of sialic acid with a dual gold nanoprobe system.

A dual gold nanoprobe system was designed for portable Raman detection of sialic acid (SA) for tumor identification. The dual gold nanoprobe system contained two gold nanoprobes, Au10-DTTC/PEG-PBA and Au40-PEG-SA. Au10-DTTC/PEG-PBA was constructed on a 10 nm gold nanoparticle modified with 3,3'-diethylthia tricarbocyanine iodide (DTTCI) as the Raman reporter and 3-aminophenylboronic acid (APBA) through a thiol PEG succinimidyl carboxymethyl ester (HS-PEG-NHS) linker for specific recognition of SA.

-GlcNAcylation mapping of single living cells by quantitative SERS imaging.

-GlcNAcylation is involved in many biological processes including cancerization. Nevertheless, its quantification in single living cells is still a bottleneck. Here we develop a quantitative SERS imaging strategy for mapping the -GlcNAcylation distribution of single living cells.

Tumor suppression diverting intracellular sialylation with multifunctional nanoparticles.

Sialylation plays an important role in tumor-related physiological processes. Therefore, intervention of sialylation has great potential to explore new paths for tumor therapy. In view of the immune modulation of sialic acid (SA) on tumors, this work designs a multifunctional mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MFMSN) to divert intracellular sialylation for tumor suppression.

Tug-of-war: molecular dynamometers against living cells for analyzing sub-piconewton interaction of a specific protein with the cell membrane.

Protein-membrane interactions play important roles in signal transductions and functional regulation of membrane proteins. Here, we design a molecular dynamometer (MDM) for analyzing protein-membrane interaction on living cells. The MDM is constructed by assembling an artificial lipid bilayer and alkylated Cy3-DNA azide (azide-Cy3-C) on a silica bubble.