Plasmonic Enhancement of Fluorescence and Protein Dynamics in Living Mammalian Cells
Marco Locarno (TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
Qiangrui Dong (TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
Marco Post (TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
Xin Meng (TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
Cristiano Glessi (TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
Nynke Marije Hettema (TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
Nidas Brandsma (Student TU Delft)
Alejandro Castañeda Garcia (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
Srividya Ganapathy (TU Delft - Applied Sciences, University of California)
Thieme Schmidt
Lars van Roemburg (TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
Bing Xu (TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
Chun Ting Cho (TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
Liedewij Laan (TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
Miao Ping Chien (Erasmus MC, Oncode Institute)
Daan Brinks (Erasmus MC, TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
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Abstract
This study shows that coupling to designed plasmonic nanoparticles can modulate the electrophysiological function of proteins in living mammalian cells. Nanostar-shaped particles, that are robust to biological noise, are designed to enable near-field-coupling to plasma membrane-localized mutated Archaerhodopsin proteins in live cells. The coupled rhodopsins exhibit enhanced fluorescence and an increased response speed to membrane voltage. Incorporating this plasmonic enhancement into a Markov chain photocycle model of the Archaerhodopsin mutant QuasAr6a, shows an increased fluorescence emission rate and manipulation of the protein dynamics through a combination of photocycle transition rate enhancements. The results show an improvement in fluorescence and voltage-response dynamics of the functional QuasAr6a Archaerhodopsin mutant, beyond what has been achievable through genetic engineering. This opens up possibilities for engineering the biological functionality of proteins through plasmonics: manipulating protein photocycles could improve light sensitivity, change optogenetic applications, and lead to fluorescent biosensors with enhanced dynamics.
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