Capacitance-based real time monitoring of receptor-mediated endocytosis

Receptor-mediated endocytosis is essential for targeted gene/drug delivery to a specific cell type. In this study, we developed a capacitance sensor to monitor receptor-mediated endocytosis in real time. The capacitance sensor was able to detect a capacitance peak in different cell lines during the internalization of adenoviruses or antibodies via receptor-mediated endocytosis. In contrast, the capacitance declined without a capacitance peak when nanoparticles were taken up via non-specific pinocytosis. Thus, our capacitance sensor represents a potential capacitance-based means of discrimination between receptor-mediated endocytosis and non-specific pinocytosis. Moreover, we developed a capacitance sensor array to demonstrate capacitance-based high-throughput screening. We showed that the capacitance sensor array could rapidly identify antibodies or ligands with high specificity for target molecules. We propose that the capacitance sensor array will provide a valuable tool for high-throughput screening. �� 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work was supported by the NRF through the National Core Research Center for Nanomedical Technology (Grant No. R15-2004-024-00000-0 ). P. H. Kim and C.-O. Yun acknowledge support from the NRF ( R01-2006-000-10084-0 , 2009K001644 ), and the Ministry of Commerce Industry and Energy ( 10030051 ). K. Kim and D. Kim were partially supported by the NRF ( M10755020001-08 N5502-00110 ). Appendix