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ZIF-8 encapsulated upconversion nanoprobes to evaluate pH variations in food spoilage

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Abstract

A novel nanoassembly was constructed through encapsulating upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) into a metal–organic framework structure (ZIF-8), in which doxorubicin (DOX) was absorbed into pores of ZIF-8. The blue emission of UCNPs was quenched by DOX through the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) strategy. When the nanoprobe was exposed to food samples with different pH values, ZIF-8 collapsed to release DOX molecules, resulting in upconversion recovery. The porous structure of ZIF-8 provides abundant space for DOX absorption, which significantly improves the detection capacities and accuracy. It is shown that the probe has a good linear relationship when pH values vary from 2.5 to 7.4, and can distinguish pH variations as low as 0.5 in real samples. This strategy has been successfully used to determine food spoilage by determination of pH variations.

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Funding

The work was supported by the grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (21675038 and 22074028), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (PA2020GDKC0021).

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Author notes

  1. Jinmei Wu and Qi Lu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Food and Biological Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, Anhui, China

    Jinmei Wu, Xiao Fu, Huajian Xu, Pingping Wan & Huimin Fu

  2. School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, Guangdong, China

    Qi Lu & Qingsong Mei

  3. The First Affiliated Hospital, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, Guangdong, China

    Jiqiang Ding

  4. School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China

    Jing Zhang

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  1. Jinmei Wu
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  2. Qi Lu
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Correspondence to Qingsong Mei.

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Wu, J., Lu, Q., Fu, X. et al. ZIF-8 encapsulated upconversion nanoprobes to evaluate pH variations in food spoilage. Microchim Acta 189, 87 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-022-05196-7

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