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Published on: June 9, 2023
Gold nanoflower-based surface-enhanced Raman probes for pH mapping of tumor cell microenviroment
Mo Xie1,2, Fan Li3, Peilin Gu1,2
1Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
Objectives:
Early diagnosis of tumour cells is critically important for cancer treatment. Given that the tumour environment is slightly acidic, the pH value of the cell environment can be used as a criterion for tumour diagnosis. However, mapping pH in the cell environment with high resolution, high sensitivity and accuracy remains challenging.
Materials And Methods:
Based on gold nanoflower as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate loading with p-mercaptobenzoic acid (MPA) as pH-responsive Raman reporter, a new SERS nanoprobe for pH mapping was developed.
Results:
This probe showed a characteristic Raman spectrum signal in response to the different pH in solutions or cells. The signal intensity is positively correlated to the pH value. Moreover, this probe is self-correctable, which can help eliminate the influence of probe concentration on the accuracy of pH measuring.
Conclusions:
We demonstrate the pH mapping of cell environment using the probe, which can be used to distinguish normal cells and tumour cells. This method may provide a new imaging tool for early diagnosis of cancer.
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