The Fate of Lipid-Coated and Uncoated Fluorescent Nanodiamonds during Cell Division in Yeast

Fluorescent nanodiamonds are frequently used as biolabels. They have also recently been established for magnetic resonance and temperature sensing at the nanoscale level. To properly use them in cell biology, we first have to understand their intracellular fate. Here, we investigated, for the first time, what happens to diamond particles during and after cell division in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) cells. More concretely, our goal was to answer the question of whether nanodiamonds remain in the mother cells or end up in the daughter cells. Yeast cells are widely used as a model organism in aging and biotechnology research, and they are particularly interesting because their asymmetric cell division leads to morphologically different mother and daughter cells. Although yeast cells have a mechanism to prevent potentially harmful substances from entering the daughter cells, we found an increased number of diamond particles in daughter cells. Additionally, we found substantial excretion of particles, which has not been reported for mammalian cells. We also investigated what types of movement diamond particles undergo in the cells. Finally, we also compared bare nanodiamonds with lipid-coated diamonds, and there were no significant differences in respect to either movement or intracellular fate.