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Probing cellular events, one quantum dot at a time

Nature Methods volume 7, pages 275–285 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Monitoring the behavior of single molecules in living cells is a powerful approach to investigate the details of cellular processes. Owing to their optical, chemical and biofunctional properties, semiconductor quantum dot (QD) probes promise to be tools of choice in this endeavor. Here we review recent advances that allow ever more controlled experiments at the single-nanoparticle level in live cells. Several examples, related to membrane dynamics, cell signaling or intracellular transport, illustrate how single QD tracking can be readily used to decipher complex biological processes and address key concepts that underlie cellular organization and dynamics.

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Figure 1: Structure and properties of QD probes.
Figure 2: Processing and analysis of SQT data.
Figure 3: Studying membrane dynamics and organization by SQT.
Figure 4: Synaptic biology with QDs.
Figure 5: Intracellular tracking of QDs.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Y. Bellaiche, G. Cappello, P. Desbiolles, V. Marchi-Artzner, M. Renner and A. Triller for careful reading of the manuscript and valuable discussions. F.P. acknowledges financial support from a Marie Curie-Intra-European Fellowship (contract MEIF-CT-2006-040210) and a European Molecular Biology Organization Long-Term Fellowship. S.C. is supported by postdoctoral fellowships from Université Pierre et Marie Curie and the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale. A.S. is supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Marie Curie Training Network. M.D. acknowledges funding from the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (ANR-05-PNANO-045), the Human Frontier Science Program (RGP0005/2007) and the Centre C'Nano Ile de France.

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  1. Fabien Pinaud and Samuel Clarke: These authors contributed equally to this work.

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  1. Physics and Biology Department, Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unité de recherche 8552, Ecole normale supérieure, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris 6, Paris, France

    Fabien Pinaud, Samuel Clarke, Assa Sittner & Maxime Dahan

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  1. Fabien Pinaud
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Correspondence to Maxime Dahan.

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Pinaud, F., Clarke, S., Sittner, A. et al. Probing cellular events, one quantum dot at a time. Nat Methods 7, 275–285 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1444

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