Fig. 2

In vitro cell ablation and confocal microscopy. A In vitro cell ablation was evaluated with the MTT assay, using a range of MWCNT concentrations (0.1, 0.39, 1.56, 3.25, 6.25, 12.5, 25, 50, and 100 µg/mL). CNT-COOH (solid black circle) by itself had minimal influence on cell viability, as over 90% of cells remained viable at concentrations up to 100 μg/mL. On the other hand, cell viability decreased significantly after laser irradiation (p = 0.03) (red square). Nevertheless, if CNTs were removed before laser irradiation (blue diamond), cell viability was not affected significantly (p = 0.55). B TSHR-positive BCPAP papillary thyroid carcinoma cells were incubated with IgG; Cy5.5-MWCNT and αTSHR; Cy5.5-MWCNT. Selective binding of the αTSHR-labeled CNTs on the cell surface was observed. Scale bar = 50 µm. C αTSHR; Cy5.5-MWCNT-labeled cells had 2.84 fold enrichment of Cy5.5 signal at the cell surface over the IgG IgG; Cy5.5-MWCNT-labeled cells (p = 0.0287)