Wang, W, Guo, Y orcid.org/0000-0003-4607-7356, Tiede, C orcid.org/0000-0003-0280-4005 et al. (8 more authors) (2017) Ultraefficient Cap-Exchange Protocol To Compact Biofunctional Quantum Dots for Sensitive Ratiometric Biosensing and Cell Imaging. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 9 (18). pp. 15232-15244. ISSN 1944-8244
Abstract
An ultra-efficient cap-exchange protocol (UCEP) that can convert hydrophobic quantum dots (QDs) into stable, biocompatible and aggregation-free water-dispersed ones at a ligand:QD molar ratio (LQMR) as low as 500, some 20-200 fold less than most literature methods has been developed. The UCEP works conveniently with air-stable lipoic acid (LA)-based ligands by exploiting tris(2-carboxylethyl phosphine) based rapid in situ reduction. The resulting QDs are compact (hydrodynamic radius, Rh, <4.5 nm), bright (retaining >90% of original fluorescence), resist nonspecific adsorption of proteins and display good stability in biological buffers even with high salt content (e.g. 2 M NaCl). These advantageous properties make them well-suited for cellular imaging and ratiometric biosensing applications. The QDs prepared by UCEP using dihydrolipoic acid (DHLA)-zwitterion ligand can be readily conjugated with octa-histidine (His8)-tagged antibody mimetic proteins (known as Affimers). These QDs allow rapid, ratiometric detection of the Affimer target protein down to 10 pM via a QD-sensitized Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) readout signal. Moreover, compact biotinylated QDs can be readily prepared by UCEP in a facile, one-step process. The resulting QDs have been further employed for ratiometric detection of protein, exemplified by neutravidin, down to 5 pM, as well as for fluorescence imaging of target cancer cells.
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2017, American Chemical Society. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited. | ||||
Keywords: | cap-exchange; cell imaging; Quantum dot; ultra-efficiency; Förster resonance energy transfer; fluorescence; ratiometric sensing | ||||
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Institution: | The University of Leeds | ||||
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemistry (Leeds) > Inorganic Chemistry (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Molecular and Cellular Biology (Leeds) > Synthetic Biology (Leed) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Food Science and Nutrition (Leeds) > FSN Chemistry and Biochemistry (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) |
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Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications | ||||
Date Deposited: | 20 Apr 2017 13:51 | ||||
Last Modified: | 20 Jun 2021 08:37 | ||||
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.6b13807 | ||||
Status: | Published | ||||
Publisher: | American Chemical Society | ||||
Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.6b13807 |