Table 1.

Potential Retinal Nanodiagnostics

Diagnostics	Nanoparticle	Model	Results
NP-enhanced optical coherence tomography	Au nanoparticles2 Fe-TiO2 nanoparticles3	Rabbit skin2 Chicken breast3	Skin layer border contrast2 210–780-μm penetration3
NP-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging	Gd-PFCL emulsion linked with biotinylated antibody7	Rabbit corneal neovascularization	Enhances magnetic resonance signal intensity in the corneal capillary bed
Atomic force microscopy	Rhodopsin molecule visualization8	Murine rod outer-segment disc membranes in vitro	Rhodopsin molecule stability is a function of strength of interconnected segments
Photoacoustic microscopy	Oxygen metabolic studies9 Choroidal imaging10	Rat9 Rat and rabbit10	O2 saturation measurements9 Measurement of melanin, O2 saturation, and blood flow10
Bionanosensors	Gold nano-interdigitated arrays12	Ixodes ricinus im munosuppressor (anti-iris) protein	Detection of protein–antibody reaction at a concentration <1 ng/mL
Biologic assays	Q-dots and antibody-functionalized MNPs11	Nanotechnology-on-a-chip	Multicolor optical coding; potential for identification of pathologic substances ex vivo and in vitro
Nanopore gene sequencing	cDNA-functionalized AuNPs11,13	Nanotechnology-on-a-chip	Potential identification of inherited retinal diseases

AuNPs, gold nanoparticles; GD-PFCL, gadolinium–perfluorocarbon liquid; MNPs, magnetic nanoparticles; NP, nanoparticle; Q-dots, quantum dots.