High Resolution Live Cell Raman Imaging Using Subcellular Organelle-Targeting SERS-Sensitive Gold Nanoparticles with Highly Narrow Intra-Nanogap

Abstract

We report a method to achieve high speed and high resolution live cell Raman images using small spherical gold nanopartides with highly narrow intra-nanogap structures responding to NIR excitation (785 nm) and high-speed confocal Raman microscopy. The three different Raman active molecules, placed in the narrow intra-nanogap showed.,a strong and uniform Raman intensity in solution even under transient exposure time (10 ms) and low input power of incident laser (200 AT), which lead to obtain high-resolution single cell The high resolution Raman image showed the distributions of gold nanoparticles for their targeted sites such as cytoplasm, mitochondria or nucleus. The high speed Raman based live Cell imaging allowed us to monitor rapidly changing cell morphologies during cell death induced by the addition of highly toxic KCN solution to cells.: These results strongly suggest that the use of SERS-active nanoparticle can greatly improve the current temporal resolution and image quality of Raman based cell images enough to obtain the detailed cell dynamics and/or the responses of cells to potential drug molecules.