Real time monitoring of living cells
Cell growth is a fundamental process regulated by signal transduction mechanisms. Deviations from the normal regulatory processes can lead to cancer. Such abnormalities can often be traced to changes in cell signalling, involving tyrosine kinases, growth factors, or genes regulating the cell cycle. Real time monitoring of bio-molecular processes in living cells is important for biotechnology, cell biology, nanomedicine and neurosciences. The current in- vitro techniques either employ fluorescent dyes with limited application or use reagents with high toxicity. The aim of the EU-funded DINAMO project was to develop synthetic fluorescent nanodiamond particles (fND) as a non-invasive nanoscopic tool for real-time experiments in living cells. DINAMO project has established production routes for fND engineered from commercially available nitrogen-containing synthetic diamond. The technology was tested for reproducibility and reliability and processes for mass production were evaluated. fND surface modification through functional groups were applied to fND colloids, allowing attachment of identified targeting or sensing molecules. fND photonic mapping, scanning magnetometry, fND FRET sensing and fND-MRI were developed as novel detection platforms for nanoscopic monitoring. The consortium studied applicability of fND in cell biology and nanomedicine. For this purpose, they assessed fND cytotoxicity, inflammatory reactions and fND potential for biological monitoring in vivo and in vitro. fNDs demonstrated low toxicity and were extremely well tolerated in live cells and mice models. They were tested in applications for targeting, DNA delivery and monitoring of oncogenic transformation in different types of cancer cells. Research results of the DINAMO are enormously important and some partners of the consortium continued working on the technology. The achievements of the project are in line with the advancement of next-generation nanocarriers as a drug delivery systems.
Keywords
Bio-molecular processes, cell biology, nanomedicine, flourescent nanodiamond particles, nitrogen, DNA delivery
