An optimized electroporation method for delivering nanoparticles into living cells for surface-enhanced Raman scattering imaging

摘要

The existing electroporation method can rapidly deliver nanoparticles (NPs) into living cells for intracellular surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) imaging. Unfortunately, the cellular SERS signals are major from molecules located near the two poles of the cell facing toward to the electrodes because most NPs enter cells through these two poles and easily happen to aggregate there. Here, we present an optimized electroporation method for transferring NPs into living cells to obtain a uniform NPs distribution. The distribution of intracellular NPs was monitored by the SERS signal of 4-mercaptobenzoic acid, which is sandwiched between the Au-Ag core-shell and validated by TEM images. In addition, based on this uniform distribution of NPs, we then detected the distribution of cellular molecules like phenylalanine and lipid via SERS imaging. Results demonstrate the great potential for the optimized electroporation-based SERS imaging in cellular study.