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Direct formation of mesoporous upconverting core-shell nanoparticles for bioimaging of living cells

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Abstract

We have developed a one-step method for the synthesis of mesoporous upconverting nanoparticles (MUCNs) of the type NaYF4:Yb,Er@mSiO2 in ammoniacal ethanol/water solution. The mesoporous silica is directly encapsulating the hydrophobic upconversion nanoparticles (UCNs) due to the presence of the template CTAB. Intense green emission (between 520 and 560 nm) and weaker red emission (between 630 and 670 nm) is observed upon 980-nm laser excitation. The MUCNs display low cytotoxicity (as revealed by an MTT test) and were successfully applied to label and image human nasopharyngeal epidermal carcinoma (KB) cells.

A facile one-step method was proposed for direct formation of core-shell mesoporous silica coated upconverting nanoparticles (MUCNs), NaYF4:Yb,Er@mSiO2, in an ammonia and ethanol aqueous solution and the obtained MUCNs were successfully applied to bioimaging of living cells.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 21001072, 21231004), the Project-sponsored by SRF for ROCS, SEM., Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (13ZZ073), the Key Subject of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (J50102), and the project from State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization (RERU2011012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center of Nano Science and Technology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, People’s Republic of China

    Lining Sun, Tao Liu, Yannan Qiu, Jinliang Liu & Liyi Shi

  2. Institute of Analytical Chemistry, Chemo- and Biosensors, University of Regensburg, 93040, Regensburg, Germany

    Otto S. Wolfbeis

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  1. Lining Sun
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  2. Tao Liu
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  3. Yannan Qiu
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  4. Jinliang Liu
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  5. Liyi Shi
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  6. Otto S. Wolfbeis
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Correspondence to Lining Sun or Liyi Shi.

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Sun, L., Liu, T., Qiu, Y. et al. Direct formation of mesoporous upconverting core-shell nanoparticles for bioimaging of living cells. Microchim Acta 181, 775–781 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-013-1073-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-013-1073-9

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