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Detection of Inflammation in Vivo by Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Provides Higher Sensitivity Than Conventional Fluorescence Imaging
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posted on 2012-07-17, 00:00 authored by Ross McQueenie, Ross Stevenson, Robert Benson, Neil MacRitchie, Iain McInnes, Pasquale Maffia, Karen Faulds, Duncan Graham, James Brewer, Paul GarsideThe detection of inflammatory changes is a key aim for
the early
diagnosis and treatment of several autoimmune, infectious, and metastatic
diseases. While surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has the capability
to provide noninvasive, in vivo imaging at sufficient depth to achieve
this goal, this approach has not been exploited in the study of inflammation.
SERS-active nanoparticles were coded with a unique Raman signal that
was protected under a wide range of conditions and stimuli. To detect
early-stage inflammation, gold nanoparticle clusters containing Raman-active
molecules were conjugated to intercellular adhesion molecule 1- (ICAM-1-)
specific monoclonal antibodies. SERS allowed noninvasive measurement
of ICAM-1 expression in vivo with twice the sensitivity of two-photon
fluorescence. This is the first time SERS has been used for in vivo
detection of inflammation and is a major advance in the ever-growing
toolkit of approaches for use in noninvasive, next-generation in vivo
imaging.