Cell surface-based differentiation of cell types and cancer states using a gold nanoparticle-GFP based sensing array

Gold nanoparticle-green fluorescent protein (NP-GFP) based arrays have been created for rapid identification of mammalian cells on the basis of cell surface properties. Highly reproducible characteristic patterns were obtained from different cell types enabling the identification of cell types and cancer states. Using these arrays we could differentiate between isogenic normal, cancer and metastatic cell types using only similar to 5000 cells.