Quantification of Internalized Silica Nanoparticles via STED Microscopy

Figure 1

Overviews of A549 cells exposed to SNPs. Images are maximum intensity projections obtained by taking z-stacks of whole A549 cells that had been exposed to Si-25-FD (a) or Si-85-FD (b) particles at an initial number concentration of 9.2 × 10¹⁰ SNPs mL⁻¹ for 5 h. For microscopy studies, A549-pAcGFP1-Mem cells were used, expressing a fluorescent protein derivative fused to the N-terminal membrane targeting signal of neuromodulin for membrane labeling (cyan). The nuclear lamina is shown in yellow. SNPs (magenta), labeled with Atto647N, were imaged in STED mode and the two other structures in conventional confocal mode. White boxes indicate the areas shown in more detail in Figures 2 and 3. Contrast and brightness were adjusted in all images for better illustration.

(a)

(b)