Highly selective phosphorescent nanoprobes for sensing and bioimaging of homocysteine and cysteine

Xiangmei Liu; Na Xi; Shujuan Liu; Yun Ma; Huiran Yang; Haoran Li; Junhui He; Qiang Zhao; Fuyou Li; Wei Huang

doi:10.1039/C2JM15946E

Highly selective phosphorescent nanoprobes for sensing and bioimaging of homocysteine and cysteine†

Xiangmei Liu,‡^a Na Xi,‡^a Shujuan Liu,^a Yun Ma,^a Huiran Yang,^a Haoran Li,^a Junhui He,^c Qiang Zhao,*^ab Fuyou Li*^d and Wei Huang*^a

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* Corresponding authors

^a Key Laboratory for Organic Electronics & Information Displays (KLOEID) and Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Nanjing University of Posts & Telecommunications (NUPT), 9 Wenyuan Road, Nanjing 210046, China
E-mail: iamqzhao@njupt.edu.cn, wei-huang@njupt.edu.cn
Fax: +86 25 8586 6008
Tel: +86 25 8586 6008

^b State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

^c Functional Nanomaterials Laboratory, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhongguancun, Beiyitiao 2, Haidianqu, Beijing 100190, China

^d Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
E-mail: fyli@fudan.edu.cn
Fax: +86 21 55664621
Tel: +86 2155664185

Abstract

Most of reported fluorescent probes for mercapto amino acids are organic dyes. They often exhibit poor water-solubility and require the use of biologically toxic organic solvents in sensing and bioimaging. In the present study, a biocompatible phosphorescent nanoprobe by using mesoporous silica nanoparticles as carriers and an iridium(III) complex as signaling units was demonstrated. The nanoprobe exhibits a naked-eye double-signal response for the detection of homocysteine (Hcy) and cysteine (Cys) in pure phosphate buffer saline (PBS), which provides the advantage in effectively avoiding the interference from background signal of biological samples and environmental effects. In addition, the response mechanism, cytotoxicity and bioimaging were studied in detail. These results demonstrated that such a design strategy of phosphorescent nanoprobes is an effective way to develop excellent phosphorescent cellular probes for live cell applications.

Journal of Materials Chemistry

Highly selective phosphorescent nanoprobes for sensing and bioimaging of homocysteine and cysteine†

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Highly selective phosphorescent nanoprobes for sensing and bioimaging of homocysteine and cysteine

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