The ability to obtain chemical information about various receptors within cell membranes could advance efforts for drug development that target disease associated with receptor activity.  A key class of cell membrane proteins associated with cell adhesion, differentiation, and growth are integrin receptrs. In this work, TERS conducted with a Nanonics Multiview 4000 selectively detects the Raman spectrum of the integrin receptor in the cellular membrane.

Authors Hao Wang and Zachary Schultz of University of Notre Dame [ChemPhysChem 2014]use nanoparticles functionalized with ligands to bind with intact cell membranes.  The nanoparticle then functions as an enhancing nanostructure enabling TERS measurements of the Raman spectra of the ligands.  The authors conduct TERS to detect the signal of the amino acid within the integrin receptor and thus elucidate the structure of the receptor’s binding site.  This demonstrates the powerful utility of TERS for obtaining sensitive chemical information about amino acids relevant to chemical processes within cellular membrane proteins.

TERS setup for imaging nanoparticle functionalized ligands

Published:  H. Wang et al., 2014 ChemPhysChem   

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