Stable and Reversible Functionalization and Super-Resolution Microscopy of Live Cell Membranes

25 October 2021, Version 2
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

Live cell surface functionalization has been increasingly explored in recent years because of its emerging bio- medical and therapeutic applications. Known methods to functionalize live-cell surface includes time-consuming metabolic docking of non-natural functional groups on cell surfaces that are hard to use. Here, we report an easy and direct functionalization method for cell surface and cell-cell conjugation utilizing native phosphate groups on cell membranes. We used three-dimensional single-molecule localization microscopy to confirm that the chemical conjugate binds preferentially on the cell surface. We show an application of this method for live-cell imaging and enhancement of cell-cell interaction leading to increased T cell proliferation. Our simple and reversible cell-conjugation strategy would be widely useful to explore and optimize cell-cell contact-based proliferation for any cell-based therapeutic applications.

Keywords

Live cell surface functionalization
Reversible Linkage
Phospholipid chemical conjugation
bio-orthogonal reactions
Live cell imaging

Supplementary materials

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Supplementary materials
Description
Copies of NMR and FT-IR spectra of the cargo, the procedure for the synthesis of the cargo, the procedure of super- resolution imaging, procedure for cell surface conjugation are included in this document.
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