Preparation of Yellow-Green-Emissive Carbon Dots and Their Application in Constructing a Fluorescent Turn-On Nanoprobe for Imaging of Selenol in Living Cells

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• 作者：Qin Wang ; Shengrui Zhang ; Yaogang Zhong ; Xiao-Feng YangZheng Li ; Hua Li
• 刊名：Analytical Chemistry
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 7, 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：89
• 期：3
• 页码：1734-1741
• 全文大小：594K
• ISSN：1520-6882

文摘

Selenocysteine (Sec) carries out the majority of the functions of the various Se-containing species in vivo. Thus, it is of great importance to develop sensitive and selective assays to detect Sec. Herein, a carbon-dot-based fluorescent turn-on probe for highly selective detection of selenol in living cells is presented. The highly photoluminescent carbon dots that emit yellow-green fluorescence (Y-G-CDs; λ_max = 520 nm in water) were prepared by using m-aminophenol as carbon precursor through a facile solvothermal method. The surface of Y-G-CDs was then covalently functionalized with 2,4-dinitrobenzenesulfonyl chloride (DNS-Cl) to afford the 2,4-dinitrobenzene-functionalized CDs (CD-DNS) as a nanoprobe for selenol. CD-DNS is almost nonfluorescent. However, upon treating with Sec, the DNS moiety of CD-DNS can be readily cleaved by selenolate through a nucleophilic substitution process, resulting in the formation of highly fluorescent Y-G-CDs and hence leads to a dramatic increase in fluorescence intensity. The proposed nanoprobe exhibits high sensitivity and selectivity toward Sec over biothiols and other biological species. A preliminary study shows that CD-DNS can function as a useful tool for fluorescence imaging of exogenous and endogenous selenol in living cells.