Cell-targeting multifunctional nanospheres with both fluorescence and magnetism

A simple and convenient strategy to fabricate novel trifunctional nanospheres (TFN) with fluorescence, magnetism, and cell recognition was analyzed. TFNs were obtained by modifying the surface of the bifunctional nanospheres (BFN) with folic acid (FA). The FA receptor (FR) is a glycoprotein that is found to be vastly over-expressed in a wide variety of human tumors, especially in epithelial cancer cells. It is found that the TFNs with FA ligands could capture Hela and MCF-7 cancer cells after 3-4 h incubation. The TFNs can capture the cancer cells through the specific recognition interaction between FA and FR. The strategy has the capacity of capturing and separation of specific cancer cells and can be easily manipulated and tracked. The surface-immobilized molecules of the TFNs can be optionally changed on demand for the purposes of bioanalysis biomedical imaging, diagnosis, and the combinatorial screening of drugs.