Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for the detection of intracellular constituents using gold nanoshells

This study reports on current work involving the use of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) for the intracellular detection of cell constituents in mouse fibroblast cells using gold nanoshells. Gold nanoshells were acquired from Nanospectra Biosciences that are based on a silica dielectric core and an outer gold shell layer. They have the unique property of a tunable surface plasmon resonance wavelength from the visible through the near infrared which allows control of the electromagnetic field strength on its surface. Hence gold nanoshells can serve as SERS substrates with plasmonic properties that are not aggregation dependent and thus can be expected to overcome the reproducibility problem that is generally associated with aggregation based colloidal metal nanoparticles. These results represent the first steps in the development of a nanoshell-based SERS probe to detect cell organelles and/or intracellular biochemicals with the goal of ultimately improving the ability to monitor intracellular biological processes in real time.