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Ratiometric luminescent sensor based on BSA-coated gold/silver nanoclusters for the selective determination and spatiotemporal imaging of gallic acid in plants

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Abstract

A new fluorescence sensing strategy has been developed. Four bimetallic nanoclusters, gold/silver, gold/copper, gold/molybdenum and gold/cobalt, were prepared using bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a reducing and stabilizing agent. The fluorescence properties of four nanoclusters were explored by solid-state UV and XPS. The gold/silver nanoclusters (BSA-Au/Ag NCs) with the best ratiometric fluorescence properties for gallic acid (GA) in plants were selected to realize the sensitive detection of GA. GA affected the conformation of BSA, thereby disrupting the luminescent environment of the nanoclusters, resulting in a pronounced fluorescence quenching at 566 nm. The ratiometric fluorescence signal (I566/I453) was used for trace detection of GA in plants. It has a wide response range of 1.25–40.0 μM and a low detection limit of 45.27 nM. GA was detected at 19.49 μM in the plant extract, and the spiked recoveries ranged from 96.09 to 104.6%. In addition, due to the non-toxic and biocompatible properties of BSA, BSA-Au/Ag NCs have also been validated for fluorescence imaging of plant tissues. It realized the comparison of GA content in different parts of plants and the difference of GA content in plants after abiotic stress. Therefore, the developed strategy offers potential application for the analytical study of active substances in plants.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the technical support from Analysis and Testing Center of Northeast Forestry University.

Funding

This project was funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2572022DJ01), the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province (LH2022B004), the 111 Project (B20088), the Heilongjiang Touyan Innovation Team Program (Tree Genetics and Breeding Innovation Team).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Resource Utilization, Key Laboratory of Forest Plant Ecology, Northeast Forestry University, 26 Hexing Road, Harbin, 150040, China

    Mengyuan Wang, Zhixin Liu, Meng Wu, Tong Wang, Xueling Yu, Na Niu & Ligang Chen

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  1. Mengyuan Wang
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  2. Zhixin Liu
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  3. Meng Wu
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  4. Tong Wang
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  5. Xueling Yu
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  6. Na Niu
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  7. Ligang Chen
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Contributions

MW: conceptualization, method, writing—review and editing. ZL: data curation, investigation. MW: method. TW: conceptualization. XY: conceptualization. NN: funding acquisition, writing—review and editing, supervision. LC: funding acquisition, writing—review and editing, supervision.

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Correspondence to Na Niu or Ligang Chen.

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Wang, M., Liu, Z., Wu, M. et al. Ratiometric luminescent sensor based on BSA-coated gold/silver nanoclusters for the selective determination and spatiotemporal imaging of gallic acid in plants. Microchim Acta 191, 60 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-023-06156-5

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