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Protein-directed synthesis of fluorescent sulfur quantum dots for highly robust detection of pyrophosphate

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Abstract

Inorganic pyrophosphate anions (PPi) play a key role in various biological processes and act as an essential indicator for physiological function evaluation and disease diagnosis. However, there is still a lack of available approaches for straightforward, robust, and convenient PPi detection. Herein, we design an on-off-on fluorescent switching nanoprobe employing Fe3+-mediated fluorescent sulfur quantum dots (SQDs) for highly robust detection of PPi. The bovine serum protein (BSA)-capped SQDs with fine water dispersibility and good optical stability are synthesized by an H2O2-assisted chemical etching reaction. Specifically, Fe3+ can strongly induce the aggregation of the SQDs into relatively larger sizes, resulting in aggregation-induced fluorescence quenching behavior. PPi can selectively bind with Fe3+ via emulative coordination and in preventing the aggregation of SQDs this is accompanied by recovery of fluorescence. The physicochemical properties of aggregated and disaggregated SQDs have been systematically investigated. Aggregation and disaggregation of the SQDs and the corresponding quenching and recovery of fluorescence occurs and guarantees the high-contrast sensing performance of the SQD system in complex and challenging aquatic environments. Our designed on-off-on nanoswitch holds great potential for the design of elemental quantum dot-based biosensors for the highly robust detection of analytes in the near future.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 21775014 and 22204012), Chongqing Innovation Research Group Project (no. CXQT21015), Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (no. CSTB2022NSCQ-MSX0466), and Startup Founds of Chongqing Normal University (no. 22XLB010).

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Author notes

  1. Xue Gong and Qingqing Cai contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Engineering Research Center for Biotechnology of Active Substances (Ministry of Education), Chongqing Key Laboratory of Green Synthesis and Applications, College of Chemistry, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, People’s Republic of China

    Xue Gong, Qingqing Cai, Jiajia Zhang, Yuanhong Min, Wensheng Fu & Yi Wang

  2. Chongqing Research Center for Pharmaceutical Engineering, College of Pharmacy, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, China

    Pu Zhang

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  1. Xue Gong
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Gong, X., Cai, Q., Zhang, J. et al. Protein-directed synthesis of fluorescent sulfur quantum dots for highly robust detection of pyrophosphate. Microchim Acta 190, 104 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-023-05686-2

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