Fabrication of a Novel Cell Culture System Using DNA-Grafted Substrates and DNase.

In conventional cell culture systems, trypsin is generally used for cell harvesting. However, trypsin damages the cells due to the nonselective degradation of proteins on the cell surface. This is a critical issue for cell culture systems. Therefore, an alternative cell culture system with the lowest possible impact on cells is desired. In this paper, we have focused on DNA as a sacrificial layer and DNase as an alternate enzyme instead of trypsin. DNase ought not to result in damage to or stress on cells as it only hydrolyzes DNAs while the plasma membrane and extracellular matrices are basically composed of lipids, proteins, and glycosides. Therefore, we fabricated DNA-grafted substrates as cell culture dishes and evaluated this novel cell culture system. As a result, we were able to culture several types of mammalian cells on the DNA-grafted substrates, with the cells harvested using DNase with only little damage to the cells. This cell culture system could provide a breakthrough in cell culturing technology.

pH-dependent network formation of quantum dots and fluorescent quenching by Au nanoparticle embedding.

A simple approach to the creation of colloidal assemblies is in high demand for the development of functional devices. Here, we present the preparation of CdTe-QD (quantum dot) networks in as little as 1 day simply by pH modification without the use of oxidants. The QD network was tractable in water and casting from a droplet produced a porous networked film on both hydrophobic and hydrophilic solid substrates. Further, we found that citrate-protected gold nanoparticles (AuNPs, d = 5 nm) could be incorporated into the QD networks to afford a QD/Au composite network, and that the fluorescence from the QDs was largely decreased by the addition of a small proportion of AuNPs (QD:AuNP = 99.4:0.6), probably due to the efficient charge transfer through the network. These data indicate that our method is suitable for application to the creation of metal/QD hybrid materials that can be integrated into wet-based processes.