Fig. 10
From: Cancer characterization and diagnosis with SERS-encoded particles
Adapted with permission from Gao et al. (2015). Copyright 2015, Elsevier
a Schematic diagram of the structure design of the multimodal SEPs. A gold nanostar labeled with the SERS reporter DTTC is coated by an organosilica layer with abundant free thiol groups on the outer surface. The strong covalent bonding between –SH and maleimide facilitates the simultaneous conjugation of Gd chelates and PEG onto the outer surface of organosilica layer, forming the final trimodal particle. b In vivo T1-weighted MR images of a tumor site before and 30 min after intravenous injection of MGSNs (4 mgml−1, 100 μl). The tumor sites are marked with red circles. c SERS spectra of the tumor region after intravenously injected with multimodal SEPs, saline solution and skin near the tumor (785 nm excitation). SERS images at the two different sites (1 and 2) of the injected tumor produced by using the baseline corrected intensity of the SERS label band at 507 cm−1. Scale bar: 10 μm. d Infrared thermal images of tags injected tumor-bearing mice at different time points under laser irradiation at 808 nm.