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Surface engineered bimetallic gold/silver nanoclusters for in situ imaging of mercury ions in living organisms

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Abstract

Chemical sensing for the sensitive and reliable detection of mercury(II) ions (Hg2+) is of great importance in environmental protection, food safety, and biomedical applications. Due to the bio-enrichment property of Hg2+ in organisms, it is particularly meaningful to develop an effective tool that can in situ and rapidly monitor the level of Hg2+ in living organisms. In this work, we report ligand functionalized gold-silver bimetallic nanoclusters with bright red fluorescence as intracellular probes for imaging Hg2+ in living cells and zebrafish. The bimetallic nanoclusters of DTT-GSH@Au/AgNCs (DG-Au/AgNCs) with strong fluorescence that benefited from the synergistic effect of Au and Ag atoms were obtained through a one-pot synthesis method, incorporating glutathione (GSH) and dithiothreitol (DTT) as the reducers and functionalized ligands. Attractively, the bright red fluorescence of DG-Au/AgNCs could be rapidly and selectively quenched by Hg2+ within 1 min with a very low detection limit of 1.01 nM. Additionally, DG-Au/AgNCs had a great advantage in the detection of Hg2+ in living cells and zebrafish owing to its notably strong red fluorescence at 665 nm, which could avoid effectively auto-fluorescence interference from the organism. Such easily prepared bimetallic fluorescent nanoclusters would be expected to provide a noninvasive and sensitive approach in the detection of heavy metals in situ for environmental protection.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from Key Research and Development Program of Zhejiang Province (2020C02024, 2021C02061), the Public Projects of Zhejiang Province (LGC20C200004), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21806168), Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (2008085QB69), and Scientific Research Foundation for High-Level Talents of West Anhui University (WGKQ2021001).

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Author notes

  1. Jianping Wang and Wang Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Biometrology and Inspection & Quarantine, College of Life Sciences, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Jianping Wang, Wang Wang, Xiaoping Yu, Xuping ShenTu & Zihong Ye

  2. Key Laboratory of Biomimetic Sensor and Detecting Technology of Anhui Province, School of Materials and Chemical Engineering, West Anhui University, Lu’an, 237012, Anhui, China

    Linlin Yang

  3. Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, Anhui, China

    Linlin Yang, Jun Zhao & Guangmei Han

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  1. Jianping Wang
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  3. Linlin Yang
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J.P.W. and W.W. contributed equally. The manuscript was written through contributions of all authors. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Linlin Yang or Zihong Ye.

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All experiments in situ were carried out in accordance with the Ethical Committee Approval of China. The study protocol was approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee of China Jiliang University. We took great efforts to reduce the number of animals used in these studies and to reduce animal suffering from pain and discomfort.

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Wang, J., Wang, W., Yang, L. et al. Surface engineered bimetallic gold/silver nanoclusters for in situ imaging of mercury ions in living organisms. Anal Bioanal Chem 414, 4235–4244 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-04076-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-04076-6

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