Nanoparticle Uptake 3D — Cellular Dose Simulator

Single-Cell Nanoparticle Uptake

Particle size 50 nm

Surface charge (zeta) 0 mV

Diffusion coeff.

–

Uptake events

–

Intracellular dose

–

Cell viability

–

How it works

A single cell sits at the centre of a fluid volume seeded with free nanoparticles. Each particle's random-walk step size follows the Stokes–Einstein relation — smaller particles diffuse faster than larger ones — while its drift toward the membrane is set by surface charge, since the membrane itself is net negatively charged. When a particle crosses the capture shell it is internalised: it disappears from the fluid and appears as a vacuole inside the cell, and the cell's accumulated dose (mass-weighted by particle volume) advances along the same Hill dose-response curve used to compute viability.

D(size) ∝ 1 / size          (Stokes–Einstein)
drift(q) = clamp(q/50, −1, 1) · attraction
P(capture) = k · charge_factor(q) · dt   [within shell]
response(D) = Dⁿ / (Dⁿ + EC50ⁿ), n=2

Particle size — sets the diffusion coefficient (small particles jitter quickly; large ones drift slowly) and the dose delivered per capture (∝ size³).
Surface charge — a positive zeta potential pulls particles toward the anionic membrane and raises capture probability; negative charge repels them.
Vacuoles — each small sphere accumulating inside the cell represents one internalised particle; their count is the running intracellular dose.
Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom — watch how the cell dims and its membrane pulses as viability drops toward the toxicity threshold.

Real-world relevance: this single-cell view is what a fluorescence-uptake assay measures directly — particle trajectories are invisible in vitro, but the resulting internalised dose and its dose-response curve are exactly what determines cytotoxicity.

Free nanoparticle Intracellular vacuole Healthy cell Toxic response

⚠ Couldn't load the 3D engineThree.js failed to load from the CDN. Check your connection and reload.