Gold Nanodots: In vivo Metabolic Imaging of Insulin with Multiphoton Fluorescence of Human Insulin–Au Nanodots (Small 12/2013)

In vivo imaging of insulin metabolism is realized by T.-M. Liu, P.-T. Chou and co-workers using synthesized human insulin–Au nanodots (NDs). Benefiting from its efficient red to near infrared emission, deep tissue subcellular uptake of insulin–Au NDs can be evaluated with a nonlinear optical microscope. On page 2103, insulin-Au NDs permeate into lipid droplets (LDs) of adipocytes, and enlarged ones in type II diabetes mice have a higher adjacent/LD concentration contrast. Human clinical samples show similar trends in patients with diabetes and coronary artery diseas