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Updated: May 13, 2026
3D Orbital Tracking in a Modified Two-photon Microscope: An Application to the Tracking of Intracellular Vesicles
Published on: October 1, 2014
Measuring the intravitreal mobility of nanomedicines with single-particle tracking microscopy
Thomas F Martens1, Dries Vercauteren, Katrien Forier
1Laboratory for General Biochemistry & Physical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ghent University, Harelbekestraat 72, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Aim:
To develop a robust assay to evaluate and compare the intravitreal mobility of nanoparticles in the intact vitreous body.
Materials & Methods:
Excised bovine eyes were prepared to preserve the fragile structure of the vitreous humor, while permitting high-resolution fluorescence microscopy and single-particle tracking analysis of intravitreally injected nanoparticles. This assay was validated by analyzing polystyrene beads and further employed to evaluate gene nanomedicines composed of poly(amido amine)s and plasmid DNA.
Results:
The assay was able to distinguish immobilized cationic nanoparticles from mobile PEGylated nanoparticles. PEGylation of the polyplexes resulted in a drastic improvement of their mobility.
Conclusion:
An ex vivo eye model is presented for studying nanoparticle mobility in intact vitreous humor by single-particle tracking microscopy. These results give important guidelines for developing gene- and drug-delivery nanomedicines that are compatible with intravitreal administration.
