Zhao Pei, Zhang Qin, Cao Juanjuan, Qian Cheng, Ye Jing, Xu Siyuan, Zhang Yonggui, Li Yanbin
College of Biological and Food Engineering, Anhui Polytechnic University, Wuhu 241000, China.
Anhui Engineering Laboratory for Industrial Microbiology Molecular Breeding, College of Biological and Food Engineering, Anhui Polytechnic University, Wuhu 241000, China.
Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 May 1;12(9):1528. doi: 10.3390/nano12091528.
Natural biomass is used for facile synthesis of carbon quantum dots (CQDs) with high fluorescence, owing to its abundance, low cost, and eco-friendliness. In this study, a bottom-up hydrothermal method was used to prepare CQDs from water hyacinth (wh) at a constant temperature of 180 °C for 12 h. The synthesized wh-CQDs had uniform size, amorphous graphite structure, high water solubility (containing multiple hydroxyl and carboxyl groups on the surface), excitation light-dependent characteristics, and high photostability. The results showed that the aqueous solution of CQDs could detect Fe rapidly, sensitively, and highly selectively with a detection limit of 0.084 μM in the linear range of 0-330 μM, which is much lower than the detection limit of 0.77 μM specified by the World Health Organization. More importantly, because the wh-CQDs were synthesized without any additives, they exhibited low toxicity to sp. cells even at high concentrations. Moreover, wh-CQDs emitted bright blue fluorescence in sp. cells, indicating its strong penetrating ability. Correspondingly, the fluorescent cell sorting results also revealed that the proportion of cell internalization reached 41.78%. In this study, wh-CQDs derived from natural biomass were used as high-performance fluorescent probes for Fe detection and sp. imaging. This study is expected to have great significance for the application of biomass carbon spots in the field of cellular imaging and biology.
天然生物质因其丰富性、低成本和环境友好性，被用于简便合成具有高荧光性的碳量子点（CQDs）。在本研究中，采用自下而上的水热法，以凤眼莲（wh）为原料，在180℃恒温下制备12小时CQDs。合成的wh-CQDs具有尺寸均匀、无定形石墨结构、高水溶性（表面含有多个羟基和羧基）、激发光依赖性特性和高光稳定性。结果表明，CQDs水溶液能快速、灵敏且高度选择性地检测Fe，在0-330μM线性范围内检测限为0.084μM，远低于世界卫生组织规定的0.77μM检测限。更重要的是，由于wh-CQDs的合成未添加任何添加剂，即使在高浓度下对sp.细胞也表现出低毒性。此外，wh-CQDs在sp.细胞中发出明亮的蓝色荧光，表明其具有较强的穿透能力。相应地，荧光细胞分选结果也显示细胞内化比例达到41.78%。在本研究中，源自天然生物质的wh-CQDs被用作检测Fe和sp.成像的高性能荧光探针。本研究有望对生物质碳点在细胞成像和生物学领域的应用具有重要意义。
