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Updated: Dec 24, 2025
A Label-free Technique for the Spatio-temporal Imaging of Single Cell Secretions
Published on: November 23, 2015
Monitoring H2 O2 on the Surface of Single Cells with Liquid Crystal Elastomer Microspheres
Weiwei Li1, Mashooq Khan1, Ling Lin2
1Department of Chemistry, Beijing Key Laboratory of Microanalytical Methods and Instrumentation, MOE Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorus Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
Abstract:
Live-imaging of signaling molecules released from living cells is a fundamental challenge in life sciences. Herein, we synthesized liquid crystal elastomer microspheres functionalized with horse-radish peroxidase (LCEM-HRP), which can be immobilized directly on the cell membrane to monitor real-time release of H2 O2 at the single-cell level. LCEM-HRP could report H2 O2 through a concentric-to-radial (C-R) transfiguration, which is due to the deprotonation of LCEM-HRP and the break of inter or intra-chain hydrogen bonding in LCEM-HRP caused by HRP-catalyzed reduction of H2 O2 . The level of transfiguration of LCEM-HRP revealed the different amounts of H2 O2 released from cells. The estimated detection sensitivity was ≈2.2×10-7 μm for 10 min of detection time. The cell lines and cell-cell heterogeneity was explored from different configurations. LCEM-HRP presents a new approach for in situ real-time imaging of H2 O2 release from living cells and can be the basis for seeking more advanced chemical probes for imaging of various signaling molecules in the cellular microenvironment.
