Plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy and imaging inside cells

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Low sensitivity, fast photo-bleaching, photo-degradation and little chemical information are the bane of many biological studies and hamper our understanding of natural phenomena. Through the application of enhanced-spectroscopy techniques such as surface-enhanced fluorescence (SEF) and surface-enhanced (resonant) Raman scattering (SE(R)RS) these bottlenecks can be overcome. The enhancement can be achieved by employing special designer surfaces or nanoparticles of appropriate size, which act as antennae to trap impinging light and funnel it into molecules near the surface. This results in enhanced spectroscopic signals both in fluorescence (SEF) and Raman (SE(R)RS). Moreover, the latter technique has the power to resolve and identify many different molecules in a mixture. In the proposal, key component of cells called microtubules, which play an important role in cell division and, hence, are attractive cancer drug targets are used as the biological subject of investigation. The application of the proposed techniques seeks to find answers to important and enigmatic questions associated with microtubules and in the process prove the benefits of the proposed techniques over conventional spectroscopy & imaging methods. Further, we will study the interaction of a common chemotherapeutic drug with microtubules inside cells. Besides understanding the mechanism of action this in turn could lead to efficient application of drug dosage regimes, less side effects and reduced costs for therapy. Overall, the proposed research will pave the way for application of enhanced-spectroscopic techniques for targeted biological studies and functional imaging and thus establish a new paradigm in biological research.