Effects of selective cell targeting with gold nanoparticles by laser irradiation on plasma membrane permeability

Light-absorbing nanoparticles targeted cells are heated by short laser pulses to create highly localized cell damage. Therefore absorbing nanoparticles enable to create controlled cellular effects. Gold nanoparticles selectively bond to the cells that are heated by short laser pulses transiently increase the membrane permeability. After irradiation, the permeabilization of the plasma membrane and cell death are probed by fluorescence staining with fluorescein isothiocyanate dextran or propidium iodide, respectively. Following the experiments, the maximal transfection efficiency for Karpas-299 of 65% is achieved, and it is found that the fraction of transiently permeabilized and then resealed cells is affected by the gold concentration and the membrane proteins of different cell lines, to which the nanoparticles were bound.