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Surface-enhanced Raman scattering: a new optical probe in molecular biophysics and biomedicine
(2010)
Sensitive and detailed molecular structural
information plays an increasing role in molecular biophysics
and molecular medicine. Therefore, vibrational
spectroscopic techniques, such as Raman scattering, which
provide high structural information content are of growing
interest in biophysical and biomedical research. Raman
spectroscopy can be revolutionized when the inelastic
scattering process takes place in the very close vicinity of
metal nanostructures. Under these conditions, strongly
increased Raman signals can be obtained due to resonances
between optical fields and the collective oscillations of the
free electrons in the metal. This effect of surface-enhanced
Raman scattering (SERS) allows us to push vibrational
spectroscopy to new limits in detection sensitivity, lateral
resolution, and molecular structural selectivity. This opens
up exciting perspectives also in molecular biospectroscopy.
This article highlights three directions where SERS can offer interesting new capabilities. This includes SERS as a
technique for detecting and tracking a single molecule, a
SERS-based nanosensor for probing the chemical composition
and the pH value in a live cell, and the effect of socalled
surface-enhanced Raman optical activity, which
provides information on the chiral organization of molecules
on surfaces.
During surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), molecules exhibit a significant increase in their Raman signals when attached, or in very close vicinity, to gold or silver nanostructures. This effect is exploited as the basis of a new class of optical labels. Here we demonstrate robust and sensitive SERS labels as probes for imaging live cells. These hybrid labels consist of gold nanoparticles with Rose Bengal or Crystal Violet attached as reporter molecules. These new labels are stable and nontoxic, do not suffer from photobleaching, and can be excited at any excitation wavelength, even in the near infrared. SERS labels can be detected and imaged through the specific Raman signatures of the reporters. In addition, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy in the local optical fields of the gold nanoparticles also provides sensitive information on the immediate molecular environment of the label in the cell and allows imaging of the native constituents of the cell. This is demonstrated by images based on a characteristic Raman line of the reporter as well as by displaying lipids based on the SERS signal of the C—H deformation/bending modes at ~ 1470 cm-1.
The interaction of nanomaterials with biomolecules, cells, and organisms plays an important role in cell biology, toxicology, and nanotechnology. Spontaneous Raman scattering can be used to probe biomolecules, cells, whole animals, and nanomaterials alike, opening interesting avenues to study the interaction of nanoparticles with complex biological systems. In this review we discuss work in biomedical Raman spectroscopy that has either been concerned directly with nanostructures and biosystems, or that indicates important directions for successful future studies on processes associated with nano-bio-interactions.
This review introduces multifunctional optical nanosensors based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and demonstrates their application in live cells. The novel nanosensors have the potential to improve our understanding of cellular processes on the molecular level. The hybrid sensor consists of gold or silver nanoparticles with an attached reporter species. The sensor can be detected and imaged based on the SERS signature of the reporter. This results in several advantages, such as high spectral specificity, multiplex capabilities, improved contrast, and photostability. SERS sensors not only highlight cellular structures, based on enhanced Raman spectra of intrinsic cellular molecules measured in the local optical fields of the gold nanoparticles, they also provide molecular structural information on their cellular
environment. Moreover, the SERS signature of the reporter can deliver information on the local pH value inside a cell at subendosomal resolution. SERS sensors are suitable for one- and two-photon excitation.
Plant tissues are complex composite structures of organic and inorganic components whose function relies on molecular heterogeneity at the nanometer scale. Scattering-type near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) in the mid-infrared (IR) region is used here to collect IR nanospectra from both fixed and native plant samples. We compared structures of chemically extracted silica bodies (phytoliths) to silicified and nonsilicified cell walls prepared as a flat block of epoxy-embedded awns of wheat (Triticum turgidum), thin sections of native epidermis cells from sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) comprising silica phytoliths, and isolated cells from awns of oats (Avena sterilis). The correlation of the scanning-probe IR images and the mechanical phase image enables a combined probing of mechanical material properties together with the chemical composition and structure of both the cell walls and the phytolith structures. The data reveal a structural heterogeneity of the different silica bodies in situ, as well as different compositions and crystallinities of cell wall components. In conclusion, IR nanospectroscopy is suggested as an ideal tool for studies of native plant materials of varied origins and preparations and could be applied to other inorganic–organic hybrid materials.