title: Distinguishing ferritin from apoferritin using magnetic force microscopy.
abstract: Estimating the amount of iron-replete ferritin versus iron-deficient apoferritin proteins is important in biomedical and nanotechnology applications. This work introduces a simple and novel approach to quantify ferritin by using magnetic force microscopy (MFM). We demonstrate how high magnetic moment probes enhance the magnitude of MFM signal, thus enabling accurate quantitative estimation of ferritin content in ferritin/apoferritin mixtures in vitro. We envisage MFM could be adapted to accurately determine ferritin content in protein mixtures or in small aliquots of clinical samples.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus 43210, USA.
authors.forename: Tanya M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Nocera
authors.forename: Yuzhi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Gunjan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Agarwal
mesh_terms: D001052:Apoferritins / Q000032:analysis* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005293:Ferritins / Q000032:analysis* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D006801:Humans; D060328:Magnetic Phenomena; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force / Q000379:methods*; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission
chemical_list: D005293:Ferritins; D001052:Apoferritins