title: Development and optimization of near-IR contrast agents for immune cell tracking.
abstract: Gold nanorods (NRs) are attractive for in vivo imaging due to their high optical cross-sections and tunable absorbance. However, the feasibility of using NRs for cell tracking has not been fully explored. Here, we synthesized dye doped silica-coated NRs as multimodal contrast agents for imaging of macrophages - immune cells which play an important role in cancer and cardiovascular diseases. We showed the importance of silica coating in imaging of NR-labeled cells. Photoacoustic (PA) imaging of NRs labeled macrophages showed high sensitivity. Therefore, these results provide foundation for applications of silica-coated NRs and PA imaging in tracking of immune cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 107 W Dean Keeton St, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Pratixa P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.forename: Soon Joon
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.forename: Yun-Sheng
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Stanislav
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Emelianov
authors.forename: Konstantin V
authors.initials: KV
authors.lastname: Sokolov
keywords: (060.4230) Multiplexing; (160.4236) Nanomaterials; (170.0170) Medical optics and biotechnology; (170.2520) Fluorescence microscopy; (170.2655) Functional monitoring and imaging; (170.5120) Photoacoustic imaging