title: Live-Cell Pyrophosphate Imaging by in Situ Hot-Spot Generation.
abstract: Controlling the electromagnetic hot-spot generation is essential for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) assays. Current hot-spot-based SERS assays have been extensively studied in solutions or on substrates. However, probing biospecies by controlling the hot-spot assembly in living systems has not been demonstrated thus far. Herein, we report a background-free SERS probe for imaging pyrophosphate (PPi), a biochemically significant anion, in living cells. Intracellular PPi is able to induce the nanoparticle dimerization, thus creating an intense electromagnetic hot spot and dramatically enhancing the signal of the Raman reporters residing in the hot spot. More impressively, the reporter we used in this study provides a strong and sharp single peak in the cellular Raman-silent region (1800-2800 cm-1), thus eliminating the possible background interference. This strategy could be readily extended to detect other biomarkers by only replacing the recognition ligands.
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Research Center for Analytical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Biosensing, Nankai University , Tianjin 300071, China.
authors.forename: Mingmin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Research Center for Analytical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Biosensing, Nankai University , Tianjin 300071, China.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Research Center for Analytical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Biosensing, Nankai University , Tianjin 300071, China.
authors.forename: Huixia
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Di
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Research Center for Analytical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Biosensing, Nankai University , Tianjin 300071, China.
authors.forename: Huiqiao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Research Center for Analytical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Biosensing, Nankai University , Tianjin 300071, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Tianjin 300071, China.
authors.forename: Dingbin
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4153-9822
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D011756:Diphosphates / Q000032:analysis*; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D015335:Molecular Probes / Q000737:chemistry*; D009570:Nitriles / Q000737:chemistry*; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman; D013499:Surface Properties; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D011756:Diphosphates; D015335:Molecular Probes; D009570:Nitriles; C107241:diphosphoric acid; D006046:Gold