RESUMO

Micro/nanomachines (MNMs) correspond to human-made devices with motion in aqueous solutions. There are different routes for powering these devices. Light-driven MNMs are gaining increasing attention as fuel-free devices. On the other hand, Plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) and their photocatalytic activity have shown great potential for photochemistry reactions. Here we review several photocatalyst nanosystems, with a special emphasis in Plasmon induced photocatalytic reactions, as a novel proposal to be explored by the MNMs community in order to extend the light-driven motion of MNMs harnessing the visible and near-infrared (NIR) light spectrum.

RESUMO

Alzheimer's disease (AD), considered a common type of dementia, is mainly characterized by a progressive loss of memory and cognitive functions. Although its cause is multifactorial, it has been associated with the accumulation of toxic aggregates of the amyloid-ß peptide (Aß) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) of tau protein. At present, the development of highly sensitive, high cost-effective, and non-invasive diagnostic tools for AD remains a challenge. In the last decades, nanomaterials have emerged as an interesting and useful tool in nanomedicine for diagnostics and therapy. In particular, plasmonic nanoparticles are well-known to display unique optical properties derived from their localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), allowing their use as transducers in various sensing configurations and enhancing detection sensitivity. Herein, this review focuses on current advances in in vitro sensing techniques such as Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), Surface-enhanced fluorescence (SEF), colorimetric, and LSPR using plasmonic nanoparticles for improving the sensitivity in the detection of main biomarkers related to AD in body fluids. Additionally, we refer to the use of plasmonic nanoparticles for in vivo imaging studies in AD.

Assuntos

RESUMO

Biosensors presenting high sensitivity for the detection of biomolecules are very promising for diseases diagnosis. Nowadays, there is a need for the development of biosensors with fast, trustworthy diagnosis and mostly with low cost, mainly for applications in developing countries. Label-free plasmonic biosensors are good candidates to reach out all these characteristics due to the possibility of spectral tunability, fast sensor response, real-time detection, strong enhancement of the local electric field and excellent adaptability to assemble different nanobiotechnology architectures. In this paper, two different configurations for LSPR based biosensor were developed by using solution-phase gold nanorods (S-P-AuNRs) and AuNRs-chip. The LSPR sensitivities were evaluated by monitoring shifts in the longitudinal plasmon band with changes in the refractive index of the medium surrounding the nanoparticles. AuNRs-chip presented higher sensitivity of 297 nm RIU-1 (refractive index unit) against 196 nm RIU-1 for S-P-AuNRs. Figure of merit (FOM) for AuNRs-chip and S-P-AuNRs were 3.0 and 2.2 RIU-1, respectively. This result was assigned to the coupling of the lower energy longitudinal LSPR mode of propagation for AuNRs-chip among nearby nanoparticles in the film. In addition, an improvement of at least 18% in sensitivity was obtained comparing to others AuNRs based assay with similar aspect ratio. FOM is more appropriate to compare different approaches, in this case, the proposed biosensor reached improvements of at least 114%, presenting higher values even when compared to AuNRs of higher aspect ratio. As a proof of concept, AuNRs surface was chemically modified using mercaptoundecanoic acid followed activation with ethylcarbodiimide and N-hidroxysuccinimide to allow the interaction between Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) antibody and correspondent antigen. Both configurations studied resulted in efficient plasmonic biosensors, presenting high sensitivity for changes in the refractive index and for surface binding with anti-BSA.

Assuntos