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Photoluminescent Carbon Nanotubes Interrogate the Permeability of Multicellular Tumor Spheroids

Monday, 30 May 2016: 10:20
Aqua 311 A (Hilton San Diego Bayfront)
Y. Shamay, P. V. Jena, J. Shah, D. Roxbury, N. Paknejad (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), and D. A. Heller (Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University)
The near-infrared photoluminescence from non-covalently dispersed single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) is optimally suited to probe distinct classes of biological environments. With aspect ratios of >100:1, nanotubes present an opportunity to observe atypical interactions between linear filamentous particles and three-dimensional biological environments. A pressing concern in therapeutic biomedicine is the inability of drug-carrying nanoparticles that function well in two dimensional cell cultures, to show efficacy in vivo. The inability of spherical nanoparticles to penetrate dense three-dimensional structures in a well defined point of failure. By exploiting the ability to image single carbon nanotubes via widefield fluorescence microscopy, we quantified the relative permeability of multi cellular tumor spheroids to a linear nanoparticle1. The results indicate the ability of nanoparticles to penetrate tumor spheroids depends strongly on the nanoparticle shape. Additionally, this platform portends a new approach to characterize the permeability of living multicellular environments.

References:

  1. Photoluminescent carbon nanotubes interrogate the permeability of multicellular tumor spheroids, Yosef Shamay*, Prakit V. Jena*, et al, Carbon 97 (2016) 99-109