Thermosensitive Ion Channel Activation in Single Neuronal Cells by Using Surface-Engineered Plasmonic Nanoparticles.

This paper presents a method using plasma-membrane-targeted gold nanorods prepared with a cationic protein/lipid complex to activate a thermosensitive cation channel, TRPV1, in intact neuronal cells and provides an optogenetic platform without the need for prior genetic engineering of the target cells.