PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Menahem Y. Rotenberg
AU  - Benayahu Elbaz
AU  - Vishnu Nair
AU  - Erik Schaumann
AU  - Naomi Yamamoto
AU  - Laura Matino
AU  - Francesca Santoro
AU  - Bozhi Tian
TI  - Silicon Nanowires for Intracellular Optical Interrogation with Sub-Cellular Resolution
AID  - 10.1101/825489
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 825489
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/10/31/825489.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/10/31/825489.full
AB  - Current techniques for intracellular electrical interrogation are substrate bound and are technically demanding, or lack high spatial resolution. In this work, we use silicon nanowires, which are spontaneously internalized by many cell types, to achieve photo-stimulation with sub-cellular resolution. Myofibroblasts loaded with silicon nanowires remain viable and can undergo cell division. Stimulation of silicon nanowires at separate intracellular locations results in local calcium fluxes. We also show that nanowire-containing myofibroblasts can electrically couple to cardiomyocytes in co-culture and that photo-stimulation of the nanowires increases the spontaneous activation rate in neighboring cardiomyocytes. Finally, we demonstrate that this methodology can be extended to the interrogation of signaling in neuron–glia interactions using nanowire-containing oligodendrocytes.