Published July 30, 2020 | Version v1
Preprint Open

Real-time intracellular temperature imaging using lanthanide-bearing polymeric micelles

  • 1. ICMA, Institute of Materials Science of Aragon, CSIC-University of Zaragoza, 50008 Zaragoza, Spain
  • 2. Phantom-g, CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, Department of Physics, University of Aveiro, Campus de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
  • 3. Servicio de Apoyo a la Investigación. University of Zaragoza, C/ Pedro Cerbuna 10, 50006 Zaragoza, Spain
  • 4. Departamento de Bioquímica, Biología Molecular y Celular, Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza
  • 5. Departamento de Electrónica de Potencia, I3A, Universidad de Zaragoza 50018 Zaragoza, Spain

Description

Measurement of thermogenesis in individual cells is a remarkable challenge due to the complexity of the biochemical environment (such as pH and ionic strength) and to the rapid and yet not well-understood heat transfer mechanisms throughout the cell. Here, we present a unique system for intracellular temperature mapping in a fluorescence microscope (uncertainty of 0.2 K) using rationally designed luminescent Ln3+-bearing polymeric micellar probes (Ln=Sm, Eu) incubated in breast cancer MDA-MB468 cells. 2D thermal images recorded increasing the temperature of the cells culture medium between 296 and 304 K shows inhomogeneous intracellular temperature progressions up to ~20 degrees and subcellular gradients of ~5 degrees between the nucleolus and the rest of the cell, illustrating the thermogenic activity of the different organelles and highlighting the potential of this tool to study intracellular processes.

Notes

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 FET Open programme under grant agreement No 801305 (NanoTBtech).

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Pinol_10.1021acs.nanolett.0c02163_nanoletters.pdf

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Additional details

Funding

NanoTBTech – Nanoparticles-based 2D thermal bioimaging technologies 801305
European Commission