报告题目：利用光镊-拉曼光谱联用技术对生物分子进行从单分子到单细胞水平的表征
报 告 人：黄晋卿（香港科技飞速直播nba副教授）
报告时间：2025年12月1日（星期一）上午9:00
报告地点：飞速直播nba城校区B8号楼445会议室
邀 请 人：刘锦斌教授
主办单位：化学与化工学院
报告人简介：
Jinqing Huang is an Associate Professor at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She obtained her B.S. degree in Chemistry from Sun Yat-sen University in 2010, followed by a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from The University of Hong Kong in 2014. From 2015 to 2017, she pursued postdoctoral research in Biophysical Chemistry as a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University. Her research findings have been published in prestigious high-impact journals such as Nature Communications and Science Advances.
报告摘要：
It is challenging to characterize single or a few biomolecules in physiological milieus without excluding the influences of surrounding environment. Here, we developed a new method, optical tweezers-coupled Raman spectroscopy, enabling active characterizations of biomolecules from a single-molecule to a single-cell level. Specifically, single-molecule surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) directly probes the vibrational characteristics of individual molecules to uncover unique molecular information inaccessible from ensemble measurements. As a surface-sensitive technique, the amplification of SERS signal occurs upon the excitation of localized surface plasmon resonance in metallic nanostructures, overcoming the optical diffraction limit for nanoscale spatial detection. Complementary to this, optical tweezers introduce active control through manipulating target objectis in three dimensions with high precision, which provide sub-millisecond temporal feedback with sub-piconewton force resolution and sub-nanometer distance sensitivity.
We utilized this new platform to control two Ag nanoparticle-coated silica beads to detect target proteins in solutions, generating adjustable and reproducible SERS enhancements with single-molecule level sensitivity. Our results resolve the structural variations of alpha-synuclein arisen from its rare transient species at physiological concentration, which are buried under the averaging signals in conventional bulk measurements but crucial for the initiation of its amyloid aggregation associated with Parkinson’s disease [1]. Furthermore, by utilizing optical plasmonic trapping upon on/off laser excitation to control the formation of dynamic nanocavity, we unveil the rare pH-dependent amylin (hIAPP) species with high sensitivity and efficiency [2]. Additionally, our integrated platform offers extra control to manipulate and characterize protein properties during liquid-liquid phase separation and cell proliferation, which holds promise for regulating and resolving the structural details of individual biomolecules in complex systems. [3]
Reference:
[1] Dai X., Fu W., Chi H., Mesias V., Zhu H., Leung CW., Liu W.*, Huang J.*, Optical Tweezers-Controlled Hotspot for Sensitive and Reproducible Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Characterization of Native Protein Structures. Nat. Commun. (2021); 12, 1292.
[2] Fu W., Dai X., Chiu K., Mesias V., Zhu H., Liu W.*, Huang J.*, Efficient Optical Plasmonic Tweezer-Controlled Single-Molecule SERS Characterization of PH-Dependent Amylin Species in Aqueous Milieus. Nat. Commun. (2023); 14, 6996.
[3] Yi Q., Dai X., Park B. M., Gu J., Luo J., Wang R., Yu C., Kou S., Huang J.*, Lakerveld R.*, Sun F.*, Sci Adv. (2022); 8, eade0073.