Lasing in live mitotic and non-phagocytic cells by efficient delivery of microresonators
Date
19/01/2017Author
Grant ID
640012
PCIG12-GA-2012-334407
659213
Keywords
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Reliable methods to individually track large numbers of cells in real time are urgently needed to advance our understanding of important biological processes like cancer metastasis, neuronal network development and wound healing. It has recently been suggested to introduce microscopic whispering gallery mode lasers into the cytoplasm of cells and to use their characteristic, size dependent emission spectrum as optical barcode but so far there is no evidence that this approach is generally applicable. Here, we describe a method that drastically improves intracellular delivery of resonators for several cell types, including mitotic and non-phagocytic cells. In addition, we characterize the influence of resonator size on the spectral characteristics of the emitted laser light and identify an optimum size range that facilitates tagging and tracking of thousands of cells simultaneously. Finally, we observe that the microresonators remain internalized by cells during cell division, which enables tagging several generations of cells.
Citation
Schubert , M , Volckaert , K , Karl , M , Morton , A , Liehm , P , Miles , G B , Powis , S J & Gather , M C 2017 , ' Lasing in live mitotic and non-phagocytic cells by efficient delivery of microresonators ' , Scientific Reports , vol. 7 , 40877 . https://doi.org/10.1038/srep40877
Publication
Scientific Reports
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2045-2322Type
Journal article
Description
We acknowledge support from the ERC Starting Grant ABLASE (640012), the Scottish Funding Council (via SUPA), and the European Union Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (PCIG12-GA-2012-334407). MS acknowledges funding by the European Commission through a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (659213). MK and PL acknowledge funding from the EPSRC DTG (EP/M506631/1 and EP/L505079/1).Collections
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