title: Molecular extraction in single live cells by sneaking in and out magnetic nanomaterials.
abstract: Extraction of intracellular molecules is crucial to the study of cellular signal pathways. Disruption of the cellular membrane remains the established method to release intracellular contents, which inevitably terminates the time course of biological processes. Also, conventional laboratory extractions mostly use bulky materials that ignore the heterogeneity of each cell. In this work, we developed magnetized carbon nanotubes that can be sneaked into and out of cell bodies under a magnetic force. Using a testing model with overexpression of GFP, the nanotubes successfully transported the intracellular GFP out at the single-cell level. The confined nanoscale invasiveness did not change cell viability or proliferation. This study presents the proof of concept of a previously unidentified real-time and single-cell approach to investigate cellular biology, signal messengers, and therapeutic effects with nanomaterials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5002;School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China;
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5002;
authors.forename: Liangzi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5002;
authors.forename: Yucheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lan
authors.affiliation: Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5056; and.
authors.forename: Xiaoliu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China;
authors.forename: Zhonghong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5002;Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720 cwchu@uh.edu dcai@uh.edu zren@uh.edu.
authors.forename: Ching-Wu
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5002; cwchu@uh.edu dcai@uh.edu zren@uh.edu.
authors.forename: Dong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5002; cwchu@uh.edu dcai@uh.edu zren@uh.edu.
authors.forename: Zhifeng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ren
mesh_terms: D001693:Biological Transport, Active / Q000502:physiology; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics; D057809:HEK293 Cells; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D043942:Nanotubes; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins
keywords: drug screening; real-time detection; single-cell method