Date of Graduation

5-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Biomedical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Jensen, Hanna

Committee Member/Reader

Jensen, Morten

Committee Member/Second Reader

Mudloon, Timothy J.

Committee Member/Third Reader

Puvanakrishnan, Priya

Abstract

The objective of this study was to design citrate-coated gold nanoparticles conjugated with FITC-IgG, a fluorescent antibody, and to qualitatively and quantitatively measure the resulting fluorescent emission. Optical properties of the gold nanoparticles were measured at various stages to provide evidence of successful conjugation. The absorbance spectrum of the citrate gold nanoparticles was compared to that of the reaction mixture containing the gold nanoparticles and the FITC-IgG. A noticeable broadening of the absorption peak was observed at 519 nm indicating a surface modification of the gold nanoparticles. Fluorescence data was obtained with a fluorospectrometer and revealed a significant amount of fluorescent quenching in the reaction mixture as well as the washed mixture containing only fully conjugated molecules. However, the conjugated nanoparticles still emitted fluorescence at 519 nm as shown by the images captured under confocal microscopy. Based on the obtained optical densities of the reaction mixture and the FITC-IgG, the mass of molecules that were conjugated to the nanoparticles was calculated and determined to be approximately 24 FITC-IgG molecules per gold nanoparticle.

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