Journal article
Silk Fibroin Coated Magnesium Oxide Nanospheres: A Biocompatible and Biodegradable Tool for Noninvasive Bioimaging Applications
Jitao Li, Asma Khalid, Rajni Verma, Amanda Abraham, Farah Qazi, Xiuxiu Dong, Gaofeng Liang, Snjezana Tomljenovic-Hanic
NANOMATERIALS | MDPI | Published : 2021
DOI: 10.3390/nano11030695
Abstract
Fluorescent nanoparticles (NPs) have been increasingly studied as contrast agents for better understanding of biological processes at the cellular and molecular level. However, their use as bioimaging tools is strongly dependent on their optical emission as well as their biocompatibility. This work reports the fabrication and characterization of silk fibroin (SF) coated magnesium oxide (MgO) nanospheres, containing oxygen, Cr3+ and V2+ related optical defects, as a nontoxic and biodegradable hybrid platform for bioimaging applications. The MgO‐SF spheres demonstrated enhanced emission efficiency compared to noncoated MgO NPs. Furthermore, SF sphere coating was found to overcome agglomeration..
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Funding Acknowledgements
J.L. is supported by China national scholarship. A.K. acknowledges RMIT for the Vice Chancellor fellowship. R.V. acknowledges University of Melbourne's McKenzie fellowship. A.A. is supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) through its Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics. F.Q. is supported by University of Melbourne PhD scholarship. Some of the cell experiments were performed at the MicroNano Research Facility (MNRF) at RMIT University. The wide-field fluorescence imaging, endosome uptake imaging and cell experiments were performed at the Centre for Nanoscale Biophotonics (CNBP), RMIT node. The authors acknowledge Brian Yang for technical assistance in Bioimaging lab and Emma Wilson for discussions on cell imaging.