Researchers are developing a new method for extracting molecules from living cells -
University of Houston researchers have developed a new method for extracting molecules from living cells without disrupting cell development, work that could provide new ways to diagnose cancer and other diseases.
The researchers used magnetic carbon nanotubes to extract biomolecules from living cells, allowing them to recover molecular information without killing individual cells. A description of the work appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Most current methods for identification of intracellular information cause the death of individual cells, making it impossible to continue to obtain information and to assess changes over time, said, Zhifeng Ren, Chairman MD Anderson professor of physics and principal investigator at UH superconductivity Center and lead author of the paper. The work was a collaboration between the laboratory of Ren and Paul Chu, T.L.L. Temple Chair of Science and Founding Director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity.
Other key researchers on the project included Xiaoliu Zhang, cancer researcher with the UH Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling and Dong Cai, assistant professor of physics.
Chu, co-author of the study, said the new technique will allow researchers to get basic information from a single cell.
"Now, (most) technical break many cells to extract the inside of the cell material, so what you get is the average number of cells," he said. "The individual cells may be different, but you can not see exactly how they work."
The researchers said the steps outlined in the paper provides proof of concept. Ren said the next stage "will be the study of biological and chemical processes of the cell, further analysis."
The promise of the initial waiting results for biomedicine, he said. "This shows how nanoscience and nano-engineering can help the medical field."
Cai said the new method will be useful for screening drugs against cancer and the study of carcinogenesis, and to studies that enable researchers to obtain information from individual cells. , replacing the previous sampling methods than the average of cell diversity and obscure the specific biomarker profiles
in the paper, the researchers explain their rationale for the work - most methods result of extraction of molecular information in cell death, and those who do save the cell are special challenges, including the limited effectiveness.
This method is relatively simple, requiring the use of carbon nanotubes that the magnetic carrier and a polycarbonate filter as a collector, they relate. Cells from a cell line of human embryonic kidney cancer were used for the experiment.
The work is based on a document published in 05 by Ren Group in Nature Methods, which established that the magnetic carbon nanotubes can provide useful molecular charges in the cells. The current research takes a step further to move molecules from cells magnetically pushing through the cell walls. Carbon nanotubes have been grown with a system of chemical vapor deposition, plasma assisted, with magnetic nickel particles closed at the ends. A layer of nickel was also deposited along the surface of individual nanotubes in order to make the nanotubes can penetrate a cell wall guided by a magnet.
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