Composite SERS-based satellites navigated by optical tweezers for single cell analysis

Inna Stetciura, Alexey Yashchenok, Admir Masic, Evgeny Lyubin, Olga Inozemtseva, Maria Drozdova, Elena Markvichova, Boris N. Khlebtsov, Andrey A. Fedyanin, Gleb Sukhorukov , Dmitry Alexandrovich Gorin and Dmitry Volodkin

Here we have designed composite SERS active micro-satellites possessing a dual role working as: i) effective probes for cellular composition and ii) optically movable and easily detectable markers. The satellites were synthesized by the layer-by-layer assisted decoration of silica microparticles with metal (gold or silver) nanoparticles and astralen in order to ensure satellite SERS-based microenvironment probing and satellite recognition, respectively. A combination of optical tweezers and Raman spectroscopy can be used to navigate the satellites to a certain cellular compartment followed by the cellular uptake and also to probe the intracellular composition. The developed approach may serve in future as a tool for the single cell analysis focusing on both extracellular and intracellular studies with nanometer precision due to the multilayer surface design.

DOI