Gene expression monitoring within whole plants is critical for many applications ranging from plant biology to biofuel development. Herein, we report a unique multimodal method for in vivo imaging and biosensing of nucleic acid biotargets, specifically microRNA, within whole plant leaves by integrating three complementary techniques: surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and plasmonics-enhanced two-photon luminescence (TPL). The method described utilizes plasmonic nanostar-based inverse molecular sentinel (iMS) nanoprobes, which not only provide large Raman signal enhancement upon target binding, but also allow for localization and quantification by XRF and plasmonics-enhanced TPL. This report lays the foundation for the use of plasmonic nanoprobes for in vivo functional imaging of nucleic acid biotargets in whole plants.

Date Published: 9 September 2019
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 11082, Plasmonics: Design, Materials, Fabrication, Characterization, and Applications XVII, 1108215 (9 September 2019); doi: 10.1117/12.2529818

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 11082:
Plasmonics: Design, Materials, Fabrication, Characterization, and Applications XVII
Din Ping Tsai; Takuo Tanaka, Editor(s)