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Nanomaterials
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Microscopy for Nanomedicine Research
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Microscopy for Nanomedicine Research

A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991). This special issue belongs to the section "Biology and Medicines".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (21 November 2021) | Viewed by 11492

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Sílvia Pujals

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
1. Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Baldiri Reixac 15-21, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
2. Department of Electronics and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Physics, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Interests: nanomedicine; drug delivery; super resolution microscopy; electron microscopy; peptide chemistry

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nanomedicine arose 20 years ago with the promise to selectively deliver drugs at target sites, increasing their effectivity while minimizing undesired side effects. However, despite the great promise behind nanomedicine for drug delivery, very few products have been approved for patient use.

Different advanced microscopy techniques can guide in the path to find effective nanomedicines. From the robust characterization of nanomaterials to nanomaterials’ interaction with biological fluids and how they finally reach the target cell and organelle, microscopy can give information in each of these steps.

The potential information on nanomaterials that could be obtained from microscopy is very diverse: structure, morphology, size, surface roughness, surface charge, total number of ligands/particle, functional ligands/particle, atomic composition, etc.

Not only right after the nanomaterial formulation, but also on nanomaterial’s performance, microscopy can give important information. Protein corona formation, the EPR effect, transcytosis, extravasation, cellular targeting or the intracellular pathway of nanomedicines are some of the phenomena that can be studied using microscopy. Further, the stability of nanoformulation on different steps can potentially be followed, too.

Moreover, functional microscopy transcends pure structural information unveiling physical, chemical, and optical properties. Functional parameters like enzymatic activity, polarity, charge, pH, etc. of nanomaterials’ performance can be obtained with different microscopy techniques.

Finally, correlative techniques, usually applied to study biological processes, are starting to be used for nanomedicine.

Thus, microscopy no longer gives just a “photography” of the nanomaterial in time and space, but multidimensional information valuable for a robust nanomaterial characterization and to design more efficient nanomedicines.

Additionally, all the microscopy techniques applied for nanomedicine can also be used for nanotheranostic purposes.

The Special Issue of Nanomaterials will cover the aforementioned advances in different advanced microscopy techniques to be applied in nanomedicine.

Dr. Sílvia Pujals
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nanomaterials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Nanomedicine
  • Nanomaterials
  • Nanoparticles
  • Drug delivery
  • Nanotheranostics
  • Light microscopy
  • Confocal laser scanning microscopy
  • Super resolution microscopy
  • In vivo optical imaging
  • Electron microscopy
  • Atomic force microscopy
  • Correlative microscopy
  • Functional microscopy

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 8218 KiB  
Article
Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy for Molecule Characterization: HIM Investigation into Sources of SERS Activity of Silver-Coated Butterfly Scales
by Hiroyuki Takei, Kazuki Nagata, Natalie Frese, Armin Gölzhäuser and Takayuki Okamoto
Nanomaterials 2021, 11(7), 1741; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11071741 - 1 Jul 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2685
Abstract
Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a powerful technique for obtaining structural information of molecules in solution at low concentrations. While commercial SERS substrates are available, high costs prevent their wide-spread use in the medical field. One solution is to prepare requisite noble metal [...] Read more.
Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a powerful technique for obtaining structural information of molecules in solution at low concentrations. While commercial SERS substrates are available, high costs prevent their wide-spread use in the medical field. One solution is to prepare requisite noble metal nanostructures exploiting natural nanostructures. As an example of biomimetic approaches, butterfly wing scales with their intricate nanostructures have been found to exhibit exquisite SERS activity when coated with silver. Selecting appropriate scales from particular butterfly species and depositing silver of certain thicknesses leads to significant SERS activity. For morphological observations we used scanning electron microscopes as well as a helium ion microscope, highly suitable for morphological characterization of poorly conducting samples. In this paper, we describe a protocol for carrying out SERS measurements based on butterfly wing scales and demonstrate its LOD with a common Raman reporter, rhodamine 6 G. We also emphasize what special care is necessary in such measurements. We also try to shed light on what makes scales work as SERS substrates by carefully modifying the original nanostructures. Such a study allows us to either use scales directly as a raw material for SERS substrate or provides an insight as to what nanostructures need to be recreated for synthetic SERS substrates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microscopy for Nanomedicine Research)
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13 pages, 2477 KiB  
Article
Dielectric Imaging of Fixed HeLa Cells by In-Liquid Scanning Dielectric Force Volume Microscopy
by Martí Checa, Ruben Millan-Solsona, Adrianna Glinkowska Mares, Silvia Pujals and Gabriel Gomila
Nanomaterials 2021, 11(6), 1402; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11061402 - 25 May 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4634
Abstract
Mapping the dielectric properties of cells with nanoscale spatial resolution can be an important tool in nanomedicine and nanotoxicity analysis, which can complement structural and mechanical nanoscale measurements. Recently we have shown that dielectric constant maps can be obtained on dried fixed cells [...] Read more.
Mapping the dielectric properties of cells with nanoscale spatial resolution can be an important tool in nanomedicine and nanotoxicity analysis, which can complement structural and mechanical nanoscale measurements. Recently we have shown that dielectric constant maps can be obtained on dried fixed cells in air environment by means of scanning dielectric force volume microscopy. Here, we demonstrate that such measurements can also be performed in the much more challenging case of fixed cells in liquid environment. Performing the measurements in liquid media contributes to preserve better the structure of the fixed cells, while also enabling accessing the local dielectric properties under fully hydrated conditions. The results shown in this work pave the way to address the nanoscale dielectric imaging of living cells, for which still further developments are required, as discussed here. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microscopy for Nanomedicine Research)
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Review

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17 pages, 1927 KiB  
Review
Advanced Optical Imaging-Guided Nanotheranostics towards Personalized Cancer Drug Delivery
by Madhura Murar, Lorenzo Albertazzi and Silvia Pujals
Nanomaterials 2022, 12(3), 399; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12030399 - 26 Jan 2022
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3425
Abstract
Nanomedicine involves the use of nanotechnology for clinical applications and holds promise to improve treatments. Recent developments offer new hope for cancer detection, prevention and treatment; however, being a heterogenous disorder, cancer calls for a more targeted treatment approach. Personalized Medicine (PM) aims [...] Read more.
Nanomedicine involves the use of nanotechnology for clinical applications and holds promise to improve treatments. Recent developments offer new hope for cancer detection, prevention and treatment; however, being a heterogenous disorder, cancer calls for a more targeted treatment approach. Personalized Medicine (PM) aims to revolutionize cancer therapy by matching the most effective treatment to individual patients. Nanotheranostics comprise a combination of therapy and diagnostic imaging incorporated in a nanosystem and are developed to fulfill the promise of PM by helping in the selection of treatments, the objective monitoring of response and the planning of follow-up therapy. Although well-established imaging techniques, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computed Tomography (CT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), are primarily used in the development of theranostics, Optical Imaging (OI) offers some advantages, such as high sensitivity, spatial and temporal resolution and less invasiveness. Additionally, it allows for multiplexing, using multi-color imaging and DNA barcoding, which further aids in the development of personalized treatments. Recent advances have also given rise to techniques permitting better penetration, opening new doors for OI-guided nanotheranostics. In this review, we describe in detail these recent advances that may be used to design and develop efficient and specific nanotheranostics for personalized cancer drug delivery. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microscopy for Nanomedicine Research)
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