title: Core-shell silica nanoparticles as fluorescent labels for nanomedicine.
abstract: Progress in biomedical imaging depends on the development of probes that combine low toxicity with high sensitivity, resolution, and stability. Toward that end, a new class of highly fluorescent core-shell silica nanoparticles with narrow size distributions and enhanced photostability, known as C dots, provide an appealing alternative to quantum dots. Here, C dots are evaluated with a particular emphasis on in-vivo applications in cancer biology. It is established that C dots are nontoxic at biologically relevant concentrations, and can be used in a broad range of imaging applications including intravital visualization of capillaries and macrophages, sentinel lymph node mapping, and peptide-mediated multicolor cell labeling for real-time imaging of tumor metastasis and tracking of injected bone marrow cells in mice. These results demonstrate that fluorescent core-shell silica nanoparticles represent a powerful novel imaging tool within the emerging field of nanomedicine.
authors.affiliation: Cornell University, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
authors.forename: Jinhyang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Andrew A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Burns
authors.forename: Rebecca M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Zongxiang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Flesken-Nikitin
authors.forename: Warren R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Zipfel
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Wiesner
authors.forename: Alexander Y
authors.initials: AY
authors.lastname: Nikitin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes / Q000493:pharmacokinetics / Q000633:toxicity; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008813:Mice, Inbred ICR; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D050997:Nanomedicine; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000633:toxicity / Q000648:ultrastructure; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology; D045663:Quantum Dots; D021701:Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000493:pharmacokinetics / Q000633:toxicity; D014018:Tissue Distribution
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D012822:Silicon Dioxide