Chemical nanosensors and nanoeffectors for biology and medicine

Summary form only given. We have developed a method for minimally invasive intracellular chemical analysis, employing a nanometer scale optical device that can be entirely inserted into a single living cell. These devices consist of monodisperse spherical 20-200 nm PEBBLE (probe encapsulated by biologically localized embedding) sensors, which are composed of a polymer or sol-gel matrix incorporated with fluorescent indicator dyes, and have been developed for several analytes, including calcium, potassium, glucose and oxygen. The fluorescent PEBBLE sensors have been made ratiometric, show good reversibility and are biocompatible. PEBBLE sensors have been delivered in several ways, including gene gun bombardment and packaging in liposomes, and are used with traditional optical microscopy and spectroscopy, as well as with time resolved fluorescence and confocal microscopy. PEBBLE nanosensors have been applied to a variety of experimental biological models of disease.