Antibody-based nanoprobe for measurement of a fluorescent analyte in a single cell

Date

2000-07

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Vo-Dinh, Tuan, Jean-Pierre Alarie, Brian M. Cullum, and Guy D. Griffin. “Antibody-Based Nanoprobe for Measurement of a Fluorescent Analyte in a Single Cell.” Nature Biotechnology 18, no. 7 (July 2000): 764–67. https://doi.org/10.1038/77337.

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

We report here the application of an antibody-based nanoprobe for in situ measurements of a single cell. The nanoprobe employs antibody-based receptors targeted to a fluorescent analyte, benzopyrene tetrol (BPT), a metabolite of the carcinogen benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) and of the BaP–DNA adduct. Detection of BPT is of great biomedical interest, since this species can serve as a biomarker for monitoring DNA damage due to BaP exposure and for possible precancer diagnosis. The measurements were performed on the rat liver epithelial clone 9 cell line, which was used as the model cell system. Before making measurements, the cells were treated with BPT. Nanoprobes were inserted into individual cells, incubated 5 min to allow antigen–antibody binding, and then removed for fluorescence detection. We determined a concentration of 9.6 ± 0.2 × 10⁻¹¹ M for BPT in the individual cells investigated. The results demonstrate the possibility of in situ measurements inside a single cell using an antibody-based nanoprobe.