A Rapid Procedure Suitable to Assess Quantitatively the Endocytosis of Colloidal Gold and Its Conjugates in Cultured CellsEnrique José Andreua, José Javier Martín de Llanoa, Isabel Morenoa, and Erwin Knechtaa Instituto de Investigaciones Citológicas, Fundación Valenciana de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Valencia, Spain Correspondence to: Erwin Knecht, Instituto de Investigaciones Citológicas, Fundación Valenciana de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Amadeo de Saboya 4, 46010 Valencia, Spain.. We measured the endocytic uptake of low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) conjugated to colloidal gold in cultured cells, either by counting gold particles on electron micrographs or by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) mass spectrometry (MS). Both procedures are comparable but the latter requires a considerably shorter time and allows analysis of a much larger sample. In addition, ICP MS, compared to alternative radioactive or fluorescent procedures, offers the major advantage of using the same probe to quantify the endocytic uptake and to follow it by electron microscopy. Therefore, ICP MS analysis provides an easy, rapid, and sensitive quantification of endocytosis that complements the electron microscopic studies. (J Histochem Cytochem 46:11991201, 1998) Key Words: endocytosis, low-density lipoproteins, cultured cells, colloidal gold, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, quantitation
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