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Liposomes have been used to deliver DNA, drugs and, more recently, nanoparticles such as quantum dots, into living cells. Their electrostatic interaction with cell’s surface (negatively charged) can lead to membrane destabilization and/or fusion, facilitating intracellular release of those compounds. Nevertheless, cationic lipids can modify living cells homeostasis, depending on their concentration. In this study, we observed that the DOTAP cationic lipid concentrations influence the red blood cells (RBCs) homeostasis. We used fluorescent fusogenic liposomes composed by three lipids: DOPE, DOTAP and DPPE-Rhodamine (1:0.1/0.3/0.5/0.8/1:0.1 mM respectively), varying DOTAP from 0.1 to 1 mM. To probe liposomes ability to fuse with cells, RBCs (1% in saline) were utilized. Liposomes were characterized by zeta potential, dynamic light scattering (DLS), fluorescence and transmission electron microscopy. Their interaction with RBCs was evaluated by fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. Zeta potential results showed that, from 0.1 to 1 mM concentration, the charge increases, due to the addition of DOTAP. Liposomes’ diameter does not vary significantly when more DOTAP was added, except for the one containing 0.1 mM of DOTAP, according to DLS results. Flow cytometry and microscopy analysis showed that for all DOTAP’ concentration applied, the liposomes were capable to label RBCs. However, as higher the amount of DOTAP in liposomes, the more harmful they were to cells. Thus, the results showed that it is possible to use lower concentrations of DOTAP keeping the fusogenic liposomes’s ability and cell homeostasis. This is important to guarantee a greater efficiency in the delivery of nanoparticles or other active samples into cells.

Candida albicans is the most frequent human opportunistic pathogenic fungus and one of the most important causes of nosocomial infections. In fact, diagnosis of invasive candidiasis presents unique problems. The aim of this work was to evaluate, by fluorescence image analysis, cellular labeling of C. albicans with CdTe/CdS quantum dots conjugated or not to concanavalin A (ConA). Yeast cells were incubated with CdTe/CdS quantum dots (QD) stabilized with mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) (emission peak at 530 nm) for 1 hour. In the overall study we observed no morphological alterations. The fluorescence microscopic analysis of the yeast cells showed that the non-functionalized QDs do not label C. albicans cells, while for the QD conjugated to ConA the cells showed a fluorescence profile indicating that the membrane was preferentially marked. This profile was expected since Concanavalin A is a protein that binds specifically to terminal carbohydrate residues at the membrane cell surface. The results suggest that the QD-labeled Candida cells represent a promising tool to open new possibilities for a precise evaluation of fungal infections in pathological conditions.

ZnSe quantum dots are wide-band gap materials suitable for UV-blue-emitting applications like laser diode or biolabeling probes. Initially, an organometallic approach have been proposed for preparing these quantum dots with high quantum yield (QY), crystallinity and monodispersity. Although, the chemicals used in this procedures are toxic, expensive, pyrophoric and even explosive. Aiming to develop a more convenient and applicable methodology we propose an alternative methods to synthesize blue-emitting ZnSe/ZnS nanocrystals in aqueous media. This work presents a new methodology using chemometric analysis for improving the quantum yield of these blue probes under aqueous colloidal synthesis. The structural characterization performed by X-Ray diffraction and transmission electronic microscopy shows that this material is in the strong confinement regime with average diameter of 2.5 nm with zinc blend crystalline structure. The optical properties of the colloids demonstrate a large Stoke´s shift between the absorption band (360 nm) and the emission peak (420 nm) with a half maximum at full width of 30 nm and a maximum quantum yield of 43%.

In the last few years, quantum confinement effects in semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots - QDs) have attracted a significant amount of interest due to their new optical properties and also because of their potential applications in biological systems. In this work, cadmium sulphide (CdS) nanoparticles were synthesized in aqueous medium and passivated with Cd(OH)2. Polyphosphate ions were used in order to avoid particle aggregation. After the passivation step, CdS/Cd(OH)2 quantum dots were coated with silica. Silica coating has been extensively investigated concerning its properties in biocompatibilizing QDs to biological systems. Silica coated core-shell CdS/Cd(OH)2 water soluble QDs optical properties were studied by absorption, excitation and emission spectroscopies, while their morphological characterization was carried out by transmission electron microscopy.

This works deals with the use of quantum chemical calculations in order to investigate the interaction between cadmium telluride quantum dot (CdTe) and the following functionalizers: mecapto acetic acid (MAA), mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) and cysteine (CYS). This interaction between the quantum dot and each functionalizer was quantified by an energy value resulting from theoretical calculations. Interesting features relating this theoretical energy and the experimental results related to stability of these systems were found. The passivation of the CdTe core generating a CdS shell was also considered in the calculations.

Quantum dots (QDs) are a promising class of fluorescent probes that can be conjugated to a variety of specific cell antibodies. For this reason, simple, cheap and reproducible routes of QDs´s syntheses are the main goal of many researches in this field. The main objective of this work was to demonstrate the ability of QDs as biolabels for flow cell cytometry analysis. We have synthesized biocompatible water soluble CdS/Cd(OH)2 and CdTe/CdS QDs and applied them as fluorescent labels of hematologic cells. CdTe/CdS QDs was prepared using using a simple aqueous route with mercaptoacetic acid and mercaptopropionic acid as stabilizing agents. The resulting CdTe/CdS QDs can target biological membrane proteins and can also be internalized by cells. We applied the CdTe/CdS QDs as biolabels of human lymphocytes and compared the results obtained for lymphocytes treated and non-treated with permeabilizing agents for cell membranes. Permeabilized cells present higher fluorescence pattern than non permeabilized ones. We associated antibody A to the CdS/Cd(OH)2 QDs to label type A red blood cell (RBC). In this case, the O erythrocytes were used as the negative control. The results demonstrate that QDs were successfully functionalized with antibody A. There was a specific binding of QDs-antibody A to RBC membrane antigen only for A RBCs. We have also monitored QDs-hematologic cell interaction by using fluorescence microscopy. Our method shows that QDs can be conjugated to a variety of specific cell antibodies and can become a potential, highly efficient and low cost diagnostic tool for flow cell cytometry, very compatible with the lasers and filters used in this kind of equipments.

Semiconductor colloidal quantum dots have been, for the past two decades, incorporated in a wide range of applications from catalysis and optical sensors to biolabels. For this reason, simple, cheap and reproducible routes of synthesis are the main goal of many research groups around the world. They seek the production of a very stable and extremely quantum efficient nanocrystal that can afford rough changes in the external environment. Silica capping is becoming a very common tool in the quest for a stable quantum dot, because of its strong and stable structure, this material provides a great insulator to the nanocrystal from the outside. The nanocrystal surface is not chemically favorable to the deposition of the bare silica shell, what demands a bifunctional molecule that provides the linkage between the core and the shell. In this work we present a comparison between several silanization methods of thiol capped CdSe and CdTe quantum dots, showing some simplifications of the routes and an application of the quantum dots produced as fluorescent cell markers in acquisition of confocal microscopy images.

Hybrid nanomaterials consisted of II-VI semiconductor quantum dots covered by layers of functionalizing organic compounds, may be prepared to develop good biolabeling and consequent bioimaging applications. In this study we present some well succeeded results related to the preparation, functionalization, and to the use of II-VI semiconductor quantum dots, prepared via colloidal synthesis in aqueous medium, as highly luminescent labels for bioimaging. The resulting systems possess the combined properties of both forming elements: the optical properties of the quantum dots and the biological functionalities provided by the organic capping layers, which leads to specific association to biological systems.These nanostructured materials nanoparticles presented good optical properties and excellent resistance to photodegradation. Their conjugation to biological samples was evaluated by their fluorescence intensities and patterns, by using conventional fluorescence and laser scanning confocal microscopies. The resulting images showed very good quality concerning morphological features of the analyzed cells and tissues.

Fluorescent semiconductor nanocrystals in quantum confinement regime (quantum dots) present several well known features which make them very useful tools for biological labeling purposes. Low photo-bleaching rates, high chemical stability, active surface allowing conjugation to living cells, explains the success of this labeling procedure over the commonly used fluorescent dyes. In this paper we report the results obtained with high fluorescent core-shell CdTe-CdS (diameter = 3-7 nm) colloidal nanocrystals synthesized in aqueous medium and conjugated to glucose molecules, incubated with living yeast cells, in order to investigate their glucose up-take activity.

In this study we use CdS/Cd(OH) 2 quantum dots functionalized with concanavalin-A (Con-A) lectin, specific to glucose/mannose residues, to investigate cell alterations regarding carbohydrate profile in human mammary tissues diagnosed as fibroadenoma (benign tumor). These particles were functionalized with glutaraldehyde and Con-A and incubated with tissue sections of normal and to Fibroadenoma, a benign type of mammary tumor. The tissue sections were deparafinized, hydrated in graded alcohol and treated with a solution of Evans Blue in order to avoid autofluorescence. The fluorescence intensity of QD-Con-A stained tissues showed different patterns, which reflect the carbohydrate expression of glucose/mannose in fibroadenoma when compared to the detection of the normal carbohydrate expression. The pattern of unspecific labeling of the tissues with glutaraldehyde functionalized CdS/Cd(OH) 2 quantum dots is compared to the targeting driven by the Con-A lectin. The preliminary findings reported here support the use of CdS/Cd(OH) 2 quantum dots as specific probes of cellular alterations and their use in diagnostics.

In this work we present the preparation, characterization and conjugation of colloidal core shell CdS-Cd(OH) 2 quantum dots to health and cancer glial rats living cells in culture media. The particles were obtained via colloidal synthesis in aqueous medium, with final pH=7.3-7.4. Laser Scan Confocal Microscopy (LSCM) and Fluorescence Microscopy were used to evaluate fluorescence intensities and patterns of health and cancer (glioblastoma) glial cells labeled with the quantum dots in different time intervals. Health and cancer glial cells clearly differ in their fluorescence intensities and patterns. These different fluorescence intensities and patterns may be associated to differences concerning cellular membrane and metabolic features of health and cancer cells. The results obtained indicate the potential of the methodology for fast and precise cancer diagnostics.

In this work we applied core-shell CdS/Cd(OH)2 quantum dots (QDs) as fluorescent labels in the Leishmania amazonensis protozoarium. The nanocrystals (8-9 nm) are obtained via colloidal synthesis in aqueous medium, with final pH=7 using sodium polyphosphate as the stabilizing agent. The surface of the particles is passivated with a cadmium hydroxide shell and the particle surface is functionalized with glutaraldehyde. The functionalized and non-functionalized particles were conjugated to Leishmania organisms in the promastigote form. The marked live organisms were visualized using confocal microscopy. The systems exhibit a differentiation of the emission color for the functionalized and non-functionalized particles suggesting different chemical interactions with the promastigote moieties. Two photon emision spectra (λ exc =795nm) were obtained for the promastigotes labeled with the functionalized QDs showing a significant spectral change compared to the original QDs suspension. These spectral changes are discussed in terms of the possible energy deactivation processes.

In this work we developed a setup consisting of an Optical Tweezers equipped with linear and non-linear micro-spectroscopy system to add the capabilities of manipulation and analysing captured objects. Our setup includes a homemade confocal spectrometer using a monochromator equipped with a liquid nitrogen cooled CCD. The spectroscopic laser system included a cw and a femtosecond Ti:sapphire lasers that allowed us to perform Raman, hyper-Raman, hyper-Rayleigh and two photon Excited (TPE) luminescence in particles trapped with an Nd:YAG cw laser. We obtained Raman spectra of a single trapped polystyrene microsphere and a single trapped red blood cell to evaluate the performance of our system. We also observed hyper-Rayleigh and hyper-Raman peaks for SrTiO3 with 60s integration time only. This was possible because the repetition rate of the femtosecond Ti:sapphire lasers, on the order of 80 MHz, are much higher than the few kHz typical picosecond laser repetition rate used before in hyper- Raman experiment, which required acquisition times of order of few hours. We used this system to perform scanning microscopy and to acquire TPE luminescence spectra of captured single stained microsphere and cells conjugated with quantum dots of CdS and CdTe and hyper-Rayleigh spectra of a noncaptured ZnSe microparticle. The results obtained show the potential presented by this system and fluorescent labels to perform spectroscopy in a living trapped microorganism in any neighbourhood and dynamically observe the chemical reactions changes in real time.

We present a simple and efficient method for marking living human red blood cells using CdS (Cadmium Sulfide) quantum dots (QDs). The nanocrystals were obtained via colloidal synthesis in aqueous medium with final pH=7 using sodium polyphosphate as the stabilizing agent. The methodology implementation is simple, do not requires additional capping layers nor narrow size QDs distribution. The synthesized nanoparticles were conjugated to monoclonal A anti-body. The resulting conjugates QDs/anti-A were incubated with human erythrocytes of blood groups A and O for 30 min at 37°C. The living cells in contact with the quantum dots maintained their properties for several days showing the low level of citotoxicity of the quantum dots. The conjugation of CdS QDs/anti-A show simultaneous red and green fluorescence when excited with 543 and 488 nm respectively. The efficiency of the conjugation QDs/anti-body to the erythrocytes, for each system, was monitored by confocal microscopy. The comparative analysis of the micrographs was done with the luminescence intensity maps of the samples obtained under constant capture conditions, such as, pinhole, filters, beam splitters and photomultiplier gain. The conjugates QDs/anti-A intensely marked group A erythrocytes and did not show any luminescence for group O erythrocytes, showing the sensitivity of the labeling procedure. In conclusion, we show the viability of the use of high luminescent and stable quantum dots as fluorescent labels for human erythrocytes with a methodology of simple implementation and the possibility to use them to distinguish different blood groups.

Semiconductor nanocrystals composed by few hundred to a few thousand atoms also known as quantum dots have received substantial attention due to their size tunable narrow-emission spectra and several other advantages over organic molecules as fluorescent labels for biological applications, including resistence to photodegradation, improved brightness and only one laser excitation that enable the monitoring of several processes simultaneously. In this work we have synthesized and characterized thiol-capped CdTe and bioconjugated them to macrophages. We have mapped the fluoroscence intensity along the macrophage's body in our set up consisting of an optical tweezer plus a non-linear micro-spectroscopy system to perform scanning microscopy and observe spectra using two photon excited luminescence.