Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan, China.
J Biomed Opt. 2010 Jan-Feb;15(1):015001. doi: 10.1117/1.3291999.
Quantum dots (QDs) are widely used in the life sciences because of their novel physicochemical properties. However, the cytotoxity of these nonoparticles have attracted great attention recently because this has not been well resolved. Four probes were synthesized by chemical coupling and protein denaturation with CdSeZnS, CdTe QDs, and transferrin. Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and capillary electrophoresis were used to verify the conjugation of these luminescent probes. The cytotoxicity of these four luminescent probes and the original QDs were evaluated in HeLa cells. The results showed that over 92% of HeLa cells were still alive after being exposed to 3.2-microM CdSeZnS QDs capped with denatured transferrin for 72 h. Furthermore, while the probe preparation was very simple, the photoluminescence quantum yield of this probe was 7% higher than the original CdSeZnS QDs. This provides a new way for exploiting QD probes with low cytotoxicity, which will expand applications of nanocomposite assembly in biolabeling and imaging.
量子点（QDs）由于其新颖的物理化学性质而在生命科学中得到了广泛的应用。然而，这些纳米粒子的细胞毒性最近引起了极大的关注，因为这一问题尚未得到很好的解决。我们通过化学偶联和蛋白质变性用 CdSeZnS、CdTe QDs 和转铁蛋白合成了四个探针。我们使用十二烷基硫酸钠聚丙烯酰胺凝胶电泳和毛细管电泳来验证这些发光探针的连接。我们评估了这四个发光探针和原始 QDs 在 HeLa 细胞中的细胞毒性。结果表明，在 72 小时内，用变性转铁蛋白封端的 3.2μm CdSeZnS QDs 暴露于 3.2μM 时，超过 92%的 HeLa 细胞仍然存活。此外，尽管探针的制备非常简单，但该探针的光致发光量子产率比原始 CdSeZnS QDs 高出 7%。这为开发具有低细胞毒性的 QD 探针提供了一种新方法，这将扩展纳米复合材料组装在生物标记和成像中的应用。
