Live Cell Microscopy: A Physical Chemistry Approach.
Somen NandiSurajit GhoshKankan BhattacharyyaPublished in: The journal of physical chemistry. B (2018)
Probing dynamics of intracellular components using physical chemistry techniques is a remarkable bottom-up approach for understanding the structures and functions of a biological cell. In this "Feature Article", we give an overview on local polarity, solvation, viscosity, acid-base property, red-ox processes (thiol-disulfide exchange), and gene silencing at selected intracellular components inside a live cell. Significant differences have been observed between cancer cells and their noncancer counterparts. We demonstrate that thiol-disulfide exchange, calcium oscillation, and gene silencing are manifested in time dependence of fluorescence intensity. We show that fluorescent gold nanoclusters may be used in drug delivery (e.g., doxorubicin) and selective killing of cancer cells. Further, we discuss dynamics and structural changes of DNA quadruplexes and i-motifs, induced by different external conditions (e.g., pH) and additives (e.g., K+ and other target specific small molecules). We demonstrate that peptidomimetic analogues have high specificity over double-stranded DNA for binding with i-motifs and G-quadruplexes. These results may have significant biological implications.
Keyphrases
- single molecule
- drug delivery
- living cells
- physical activity
- mental health
- ionic liquid
- circulating tumor
- cancer therapy
- label free
- binding protein
- molecular dynamics simulations
- reactive oxygen species
- single cell
- drug discovery
- quantum dots
- high resolution
- cell free
- sensitive detection
- high frequency
- molecular dynamics
- machine learning
- cell therapy
- nucleic acid
- high intensity
- molecular docking
- fluorescent probe
- energy transfer
- stem cells
- transcription factor
- optical coherence tomography
- silver nanoparticles