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Bimetallic gold/silver nanoclusters as a fluorescent probe for detection of methotrexate and doxorubicin in serum

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Abstract

New bimetallic gold/silver nanoclusters (NCs) are reported that display strong blue fluorescence with excitation/emission maxima at 370/455 nm, decay times of around 14 ns for the main components, and a quantum yield of around 20%. The NCs were synthesized by using L-tryptophan (L-Trp) as the template to react with tetrachloroauric acid and silver nitrate at 120 °C for 4 h in a one-pot reaction. Their fluorescence is around 5 times stronger than that of pure gold nanoclusters. The fluorescence of the bimetallic NCs is strongly reduced in the presence of the antitumor drugs methotrexate (MTX) and doxorubicin (DOX) due to an inner filter effect. Response to MTX is linear in the 2.5–150 μM concentration range, and to DOX in the 2.5–150 μM concentration range. The detection limits are as low as 2.5 nM and 3 nM, respectively. The recoveries from spiked serum are between 87.7% - 101.2% for MTX and between 86.2%–105.4% for DOX.

Schematic presentation of the synthesis of Au/AgNCs and the fluorometric determination of methotrexate (MTX) and doxorubicin (DOX) based on the inner filter effect.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (NO. 21617497).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, People’s Republic of China

    Feifei Meng & Feng Gan

  2. Department of Gastroenterology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510630, People’s Republic of China

    Gang Ye

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  1. Feifei Meng
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  2. Feng Gan
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  3. Gang Ye
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Correspondence to Feng Gan or Gang Ye.

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Meng, F., Gan, F. & Ye, G. Bimetallic gold/silver nanoclusters as a fluorescent probe for detection of methotrexate and doxorubicin in serum. Microchim Acta 186, 371 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-019-3477-7

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