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Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Visualizing Diffusional Dynamics of Gold Nanorods on Cell Membrane using Single Nanoparticle Darkfield Microscopy
Published on: March 5, 2021
Morphological studies of living cells using gold nanoparticles and dark-field optical section microscopy
Chia-Wei Lee1, Miin Jang Chen, Ji-Yen Cheng
1Academia Sinica, Research Center for Applied Sciences, No. 128 Academic Road Section 2, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan.
Abstract:
The morphologic changes of living cells under drug interactions were studied by using 80-nm gold nanoparticles and dark-field optical section microscopy. The gold nanoparticles were coated with poly (L-lysine), which attached to the membranes of various cells by way of electrostatic attractive force. A three-dimensional (3-D) morphological image was obtained by measuring the peak scattering intensities of gold nanoparticles at different focal planes. An algorithm for the reconstruction of 3-D cell morphology was presented. With the measured nanoparticle images and calculations, we show morphologic changes of lung cancer cells under the interaction of cytochalasin D drug at different times.
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