Magnetic–Fluorescent Colloidal Nanobeads: Preparation and Exploitation in Cell Separation Experiments

✍ Scribed by Riccardo Di Corato; Philomena Piacenza; Mariarosaria Musarò; Raffaella Buonsanti; Pantaleo Davide Cozzoli; Massimo Zambianchi; Giovanna Barbarella; Roberto Cingolani; Liberato Manna; Teresa Pellegrino

• Book ID: 102934335
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 672 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1616-5187
• DOI: 10.1002/mabi.200900154

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Nanostructures displaying fluorescence and magnetic properties at the same time are potentially useful for achieving simultaneous bio‐separation and bio‐sensing (e.g., magnetic separation coupled with multiplexing optical detection of different tumour cell populations). Spherical nanobeads that display both fluorescent and magnetic features are reported; they are fabricated by grafting fluorescent oligothiophene molecules to an amphiphilic polymer that is then used to enwrap iron oxide nanoparticles, which acts as the magnetic domain. By tuning experimental conditions, control over the number of magnetic nanoparticles per bead and over the bead diameter (30–400 nm) was achieved. A cell separation efficiency of the level required for cell sorting applications is also reported.

magnified image