Intracellular Measurements in Mammary Carcinoma Cells Using Fiber-Optic Nanosensors

Date

2000-01-01

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Cullum, Brian M., Guy D. Griffin, Gordon H. Miller, and Tuan Vo-Dinh. “Intracellular Measurements in Mammary Carcinoma Cells Using Fiber-Optic Nanosensors.” Analytical Biochemistry 277, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 25–32. https://doi.org/10.1006/abio.1999.4341.

Rights

This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Public Domain

Abstract

Submicrometer fiber-optic biosensors have been developed and used to measure toxic chemicals within single cells. Optical fibers that have been pulled to a distal-end diameter of less than 1 μm are coated with antibodies to selectively bind the species of interest. This paper describes the use of these fibers to selectively measure the concentration of benzo[a]pyrene tetrol (BPT), a metabolite of benzo[a]pyrene, within individual cells of two different cell lines, human mammary carcinoma cells and rat liver epithelial cells. The results from these measurements have been used to determine the sensitivity, reproducibility, and usefulness of these nanosensors. The detection limit of these biosensors has been determined to be 0.64 ± 0.17 × 10⁻¹¹ M for BPT.