Near-infrared nanosecond-pulsed laser-activated highly efficient intracellular delivery mediated by nano-corrugated mushroom-shaped gold-coated polystyrene nanoparticles

Here, an efficient intracellular delivery of molecules with high cell viability is reported using nanosecond-pulsed laser-activated plasmonic photoporation, mediated by high-aspect-ratio nano-corrugated mushroom-shaped gold-coated polystyrene nanoparticles (nm-AuPNPs) at near-infrared wavelength. Upon pulsed laser illumination, nm-AuPNPs exhibit greater plasmonic extinction than spherical AuPNPs, which increase their energy efficiency and reduce the necessary illumination of light, effectively controlling cell damage and improving the delivery efficiency. Nm-AuPNPs exhibit surface plasmon absorption at near infrared region with a peak at 945 nm. Pulsed laser illumination at this plasmon peak triggers explosive nanobubbles, which create transient membrane pores, allowing the delivery of dyes, quantum dots and plasmids into the different cell types. The results can be tuned by laser fluence, exposure time, molecular size and concentration of nm-AuPNPs. The best results are found for CL1-0 cells, which yielded a 94% intracellular PI dye uptake and ∼100% cell viability at 35 mJ cm-2 laser fluence for 945 nm wavelength. Thus, the presented approach has proven to have an inevitable potential for biological cell research and therapeutic applications.

Indicator-Impregnated Agarose Films for Colorimetric Measurement of pH

In this article, we report on the development of indicator-impregnated agarose sensor films for colorimetric estimation of the pH of different standard buffer solutions and urine samples. In contrast to the conventional paper-based dipstick method, the presented method employs dried agarose that was infused with a chemical indicator, which when exposed to the test sample results in an appropriate chromogenic outcome. The color change was then quantified by the smart camera system. The divulged instrument has been calibrated with standard buffers and also tested with clinical urine samples. The systematic study was conducted to characterize the performance of the presented technique, such as interplate variations, time variations, volume variations, and shelf life study of agarose sensor films for the commercial viability of such a technique. The employed method is competent enough to bring a change in the paradigm of dipstick method from being qualitative estimation to quantitative, manual detection to automated, and a subjective approach of diagnosis to an objective one. The technique presented here has potential application in the field of point-of-care diagnostics with high fidelity, multiplexing, and robust quantitative estimation.

Dual-micropillar-based microfluidic platform for single embryonic stem cell-derived neuronal differentiation

We developed the dual-micropillar-based microfluidic platform to direct embryonic stem (ES) cell fate. 4 × 4 dual-micropillar-based microfluidic platform consisted of 16 circular-shaped outer micropillars and 8 saddle-shaped inner micropillars in which single ES cells were cultured. We hypothesized that dual-micropillar arrays would play an important role in controlling the shear stress and cell docking. Circular-shaped outer micropillars minimized the shear stress, whereas saddle-shaped innermicropillars allowed for docking of individual ES cells. We observed the effect of saddle-shaped inner micropillars on cell docking in response to hydrodynamic resistance. We also demonstrated that ES cells cultured for 6 days within the dual-micropillar-based microfluidic platform differentiated into neural-like cells. Therefore, this dual-micropillar-based microfluidic platform could be a potentially powerful method for screening of lineage commitments of single ES cells.