Ratiometric Array of Conjugated Polymers–Fluorescent Protein Provides a Robust Mammalian Cell Sensor
Open Access
- 23 March 2016
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Chemical Society (ACS) in Journal of the American Chemical Society
- Vol. 138 (13), 4522-4529
- https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.6b00067
Abstract
Supramolecular complexes of a family of positively charged conjugated polymers (CPs) and green fluorescent protein (GFP) create a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based ratiometric biosensor array. Selective multivalent interactions of the CPs with mammalian cell surfaces caused differential change in FRET signals, providing a fingerprint signature for each cell type. The resulting fluorescence signatures allowed the identification of 16 different cell types and discrimination between healthy, cancerous, and metastatic cells, with the same genetic background. While the CP-GFP sensor array completely differentiated between the cell types, only partial classification was achieved for the CPs alone, validating the effectiveness of the ratiometric sensor. The utility of the biosensor was further demonstrated in the detection of blinded unknown samples, where 121 of 128 samples were correctly identified. Notably, this selectivity-based sensor stratified diverse cell types in minutes, using only 2000 cells, without requiring specific biomarkers or cell labeling.Keywords
Funding Information
- European Commission (PIIF-GA-2013-629218)
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (GM077173)
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