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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 19, 2025

High-throughput Confocal Imaging of Quantum Dot-Conjugated SARS-CoV-2 Spike Trimers to Track Binding and Endocytosis in HEK293T Cells

High-throughput Confocal Imaging of Quantum Dot-Conjugated SARS-CoV-2 Spike Trimers to Track Binding and Endocytosis in HEK293T Cells

Published on: April 21, 2022

Single-virus tracking with quantum dots in live cells.

Hao-Yang Liu^1,2, Zhi-Gang Wang^1,2, Shu-Lin Liu^1,2

¹State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Frontiers Science Center for New Organic Matter, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, Research Center for Analytical Sciences, College of Chemistry, School of Medicine and Frontiers Science Center for Cell Responses, Nankai University, Tianjin, P. R. China.

Nature Protocols

|November 30, 2022

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Quantum dot-based single-virus tracking (QSVT) overcomes limitations of traditional methods, enabling real-time monitoring of viral infection dynamics in live cells. This technique provides detailed insights into virus-cell interactions over extended periods.

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Last Updated: Aug 19, 2025

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Area of Science:

Biophysics
Cell Biology
Virology

Background:

Single-virus tracking (SVT) is crucial for understanding viral infection mechanisms.
Conventional fluorescent tags in SVT suffer from low brightness and poor photostability, limiting long-term multicolor studies.
Quantum dots (QDs) offer superior photostability and brightness, making them ideal for advanced SVT.

Purpose of the Study:

To provide a detailed protocol for implementing QD-based SVT (QSVT) in live cells.
To demonstrate the application of QSVT for studying virus-cell interactions.
To facilitate detailed characterization of viral infection processes.

Main Methods:

Virus preparation and QD labeling strategies.
Live-cell imaging approaches for single-virus tracking.
Image processing and data analysis techniques for QSVT data.

Main Results:

QSVT enables real-time monitoring of individual viruses for milliseconds to hours.
The technique reveals detailed information on virus entry, trafficking, and egress.
QSVT overcomes limitations of conventional fluorescent tags for long-term multicolor SVT.

Conclusions:

QSVT is a powerful technique for elucidating viral infection mechanisms at the single-virus level.
The provided protocol facilitates the implementation of QSVT in live-cell imaging.
QSVT offers significant advantages for studying dynamic virus-cell interactions.