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Updated: Apr 4, 2026
Dopamine Release at Individual Presynaptic Terminals Visualized with FFNs
Published on: August 31, 2009
Visualizing dopamine released from living cells using a nanoplasmonic probe
1Division of Physical Biology & Bioimaging Centre, Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, CAS Key Laboratory of Interfacial Physics and Technology, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China. lidi@sinap.ac.cn.
Abstract:
We report the development of an ultrasensitive nanoplasmonic probe for discriminative detection and imaging of dopamine released from living cells. The sensing mechanism is based on the dopamine-induced seeded-growth of Au nanoparticles (Au NPs) that leads to the shift of the plasmon band. This platform allows for the detection of dopamine with a detection limit down to 0.25 pM within 1 min. This nanoplasmonic assay is further applied to visualize the release of dopamine from living rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells under ATP-stimulation with dark-field microscopy (DFM). The DFM results together with real time fluorescence imaging of PC12 cells stained with the Fluo calcium indicator, suggested that ATP stimulated-release of dopamine is concomitant with the Ca(2+) influx, and the influx of Ca(2+) is through ATP-activated channels instead of the voltage-gated Ca(2+) channel (VGC).
