A. Barchanski
D. Funk
O. Wittich
C. Tegenkamp
B. N. Chichkov
C. L. Sajti

Picosecond Laser Fabrication of Functional Gold-Antibody Nanoconjugates for Biomedical Applications

Journal of Physical Chemistry C
17
119
9524-9533
2015
Type: Zeitschriftenaufsatz (reviewed)
Abstract
Conventional fabrication of gold nanobiohybrids is often accomplished by multi-step chemical synthesis, causing rather long production times (hours-days) and requiring multiple purification steps. In contrast, by applying femtosecond-laser systems the process of pulsed laser ablation in liquids (PLAL) with in situ bioconjugation may be used alternatively to produce surfactant-free and functional nanobiohybrids within a single-step approach on the time scale of minutes. Gold nanobiohybrids conjugated with nucleic acids, peptides, proteins and aptamers were successfully established by these means. However, limited process productivity is a main disadvantage of the femtosecond-PLAL approach due to the short pulse duration. In this work for the first time, we utilize picosecond-PLAL to fabricate novel gold-antibody nanobiohybrids for cellular staining issues. The functionality of the nanobiohybrids is confirmed by blotting and cellular immunolabeling, resulting in equivalent staining results than achieved with conventional labeling markers. By the adoption of picosecond pulse duration a higher productivity by one order of magnitude is reached compared to the conventional femtosecond-PLAL. Moreover, the production of nanoparticles and nanobiohybrids with the same surface composition, the same amount of biomolecule load and the same level of biomolecule structure integrity is proven than that gained by femtosecond-PLAL. Finally, the potential physical mechanisms of biomolecule degradation and the quantitative on-line monitoring of the degradation are discussed. The results emphasize laser-fabricated gold-antibody nanobiohybrids as competing products to commercial immunoflow or cellular staining markers. It reveals significantly higher production speed than that achieved via existing fabrication methods and therefore represents a competing technology.