- Baca, Helen K. and Ashley, Carlee and Carnes, Eric and Lopez, Deanna and Flemming, Jeb and Dunphy, Darren and Singh, Seema and Chen, Zhu and Liu, Nanguo and Fan, Hongyou and Lopez, Gabriel P. and Brozik, Susan M. and Werner-Washburne, Margaret and Brinker, C. Jeffrey, Cell-directed assembly of lipid-silica nanostructures providing extended cell viability,
SCIENCE, vol. 313 no. 5785
pp. 337--341 [doi] .
(last updated on 2010/02/08)
Amphiphilic phospholipids were used to direct the formation of biocompatible, uniform silica nanostructures in the presence of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and bacterial cell lines. The cell surfaces organize multilayered phospholipid vesicles that interface coherently with the silica host and help relieve drying stresses that develop with conventional templates. These host structures maintain cell accessibility, addressability, and viability in the absence of buffer or an external fluidic architecture. The cell surfaces are accessible and can be used to localize added proteins, plasmids, and nanocrystals. Prolonged cell viability combined with reporter protein expression enabled stand-alone cell-based sensing.