Fig. 7From: Environmentally compatible bioconjugated gold nanoparticles as efficient contrast agents for inflammation-induced cancer imagingComparative schemes illustrating the immunofluorescence (a) and flow cytometry protocols used in this study (b). In immunofluorescence, AuNPs may be applied in 30-min incubation protocols as fluorescence-enhancing agents, providing faster results with comparable fluorescence levels to the traditional ALEXA protocol, which makes NP1 a suitable protocol for cancer diagnose. Time was counted from the antigen retrieval to the end of the second incubation. In flow cytometry, although the ALEXA marking was higher than that of the AuNPs, the N1 protocol with AuNPs allowed a greater saving of reagents as well as reduced the time required for the technique from 4 to 1 hBack to article page