Issue 5, 2019

Single-particle tracking discloses binding-mediated rocking diffusion of rod-shaped biological particles on lipid membranes

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that rod-shaped particles can achieve a high translocation efficiency for gene and drug delivery in biological samples. Previous theoretical calculations also confirmed that rod-shaped particles display higher diffusivity than their spherical counterparts in biological porous media. Understanding the diffusion dynamics of biological and non-biological rod-shaped particles in biological solutions as well as close to the lipid membrane is therefore fundamentally significant for the rational design of efficient cargos. With dark-field optical microscopy, the translational and three-dimensional (3D) orientational diffusion dynamics of individual rod-shaped particles (i.e., E. coli and upconversion microrods, UCMRs) in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and on the lipid membrane are tracked at the single-particle level. In the buffer solution, faster rotation of E. coli in the z direction was observed even though its dynamics in the xy plane is comparable with that of UCMRs. Interestingly, on the lipid membrane, distinct from the confined motion of UCMRs, anomalous rocking diffusion was observed, which might facilitate the subsequent survey of stronger association sites on the two-dimensional (2D) surface. These results would afford deep insight into the better understanding of the translocation mechanism by using rod-shaped particles as a delivery cargo in biological samples.

Graphical abstract: Single-particle tracking discloses binding-mediated rocking diffusion of rod-shaped biological particles on lipid membranes

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
11 Sept. 2018
Accepted
11 Nov. 2018
First published
12 Nov. 2018
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2019,10, 1351-1359

Single-particle tracking discloses binding-mediated rocking diffusion of rod-shaped biological particles on lipid membranes

Z. Ye, H. Liu, F. Wang, X. Wang, L. Wei and L. Xiao, Chem. Sci., 2019, 10, 1351 DOI: 10.1039/C8SC04033H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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