 gold 
 nanoparticles ( aunps ) demonstrate great promise in biomedical 
 applications due to their plasmonically enhanced imaging properties . 
 
 when in close proximity , aunps plasmonic fields couple together , increasing 
 their scattering cross - section due to the formation of hot spots , 
 improving their imaging utility . in the present study , we modified 
 the aunps surface with different peptides to target the nucleus and/or 
 the cell as a whole , resulting in similar cellular uptake but different 
 scattering intensities . 
 nuclear - targeted aunps showed the greatest 
 scattering due to the formation of denser nanoparticle clusters ( i.e. , 
 increased localization ) . 
 we also obtained a dynamic profile of aunp 
 localization in living cells , indicating that nuclear localization 
 is directly related to the number of nuclear - targeting peptides on 
 the aunp surface . increased localization led to increased plasmonic 
 field coupling , resulting in significantly higher scattering intensity . 
 
 thus , biochemical targeting of plasmonic nanoparticles to subcellular 
 components is expected to lead to more resolved imaging of cellular 
 processes . 
Supplementary Material