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Formation of targeted monovalent quantum dots by steric exclusion

Nature Methods volume 10, pages 1203–1205 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Precise control over interfacial chemistry between nanoparticles and other materials remains a major challenge that limits broad application of nanotechnology in biology. To address this challenge, we used 'steric exclusion' to completely convert commercial quantum dots (QDs) into monovalent imaging probes by wrapping each QD with a functionalized oligonucleotide. We demonstrated the utility of these QDs as modular and nonperturbing imaging probes by tracking individual Notch receptors on live cells.

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Figure 1: Exclusive synthesis of small, modular mQDs by the principle of steric exclusion.
Figure 2: ptDNA-wrapped QDs are monovalent.
Figure 3: Diffusion dynamics of SNAP-Notch proteins on surfaces of live cells.

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Change history

  • 24 October 2013

    In the version of this article initially published online, Figure 3c was mislabeled. The error has been corrected for the print, PDF and HTML versions of this article.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. van Lengerich, L.D. Hughes and P. Haggie for assistance with single-particle-tracking software. S. Blacklow (Harvard University) provided human Notch1 constructs. R. Vale (University of California San Francisco) provided feedback on the single-molecule imaging. A.P. Alivisatos (University of California Berkeley) provided helpful discussion. J. Taunton and members of Cardiovascular Research Institute Core provided TIRF microscopes. N. Sturman helped with localization microscopy plugin. B. Liang, K. Southard and M. Todhunter generated some preliminary data. J.F. was supported by the University of California San Francisco Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology (P50 GM081879). D.S. was supported by Human Frontier Science Program Cross-disciplinary postdoc research fellowship. K.E.B. was supported by US National Institutes of Health National Research Service Award grant (5F32CA165620). Z.J.G. was supported by Kimmel Family Foundation. Y.J. was partly supported by 1R21EB015088-01 from the US National Institutes of Health NIBIB, and the Bryan Hemming Fellowship.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Justin Farlow, Kyle E Broaders & Zev J Gartner

  2. Tetrad Graduate Program, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Justin Farlow & Zev J Gartner

  3. Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Justin Farlow & Zev J Gartner

  4. Department of Otolaryngology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Daeha Seo & Young-wook Jun

  5. Department of Chemistry, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA

    Daeha Seo

  6. Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA

    Daeha Seo

  7. Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Marcus J Taylor

Authors
  1. Justin Farlow
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  2. Daeha Seo
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  6. Young-wook Jun
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Contributions

Z.J.G., J.F. and Y.J. conceived the study; J.F., Z.J.G. and Y.J. designed experiments; J.F., D.S., K.E.B., M.J.T., Z.J.G. and Y.J. performed experiments; J.F. and D.S. analyzed and interpreted the data; and J.F., Z.J.G. and Y.J. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zev J Gartner or Young-wook Jun.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figures 1–24, Supplementary Tables 1 and 2, and Supplementary Notes 1–4 (PDF 1580 kb)

Time lapse of SNAP proteins on supported lipid bilayers.

Timelapse TIRF movie taken of SNAP protein embeded in a supported lipid bilayer labeled with either Streptavidin QDots linked via BG-DNA-biotin, or mQDs. SNAP protein labeled with NHS-Atto488 shown to the right. Images taken at 20 Hz; scale bar is 10 μm. (AVI 19548 kb)

AF647- and mQD-labeled SNAP-Notch on a live U2OS cell.

Timelapse TIRF movie taken of SNAP.hN1 on a single cell. The cell's AF647 stained receptors were imaged for 25 seconds and immediately followed by imaging the mQD stained receptors. The AF647 & mQD regions are identical, separated by ~30 s in time. The white boxed region is shown in Figure 4c. Images taken at 20 Hz; scale bar is 1 μm. (AVI 11210 kb)

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Farlow, J., Seo, D., Broaders, K. et al. Formation of targeted monovalent quantum dots by steric exclusion. Nat Methods 10, 1203–1205 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2682

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