State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, Research Center for Analytical Sciences, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China.
ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 311200, China.
Anal Chem. 2023 Apr 25;95(16):6664-6671. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.3c00171. Epub 2023 Apr 10.
Various physiological activities and metabolic reactions of cells need to be carried out under the corresponding pH environment. Intracellular GSH as an acid tripeptide and an important reducing substance also plays an important role in maintaining cellular acid-base balance and redox balance. Therefore, developing a method to monitor pH and GSH and their changes in cells is necessary. Herein, we developed a novel turn-on fluorescent silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) using -(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane as the silicon source and dithiothreitol as the reducing agent via a one-pot hydrothermal method. It was worth mentioning that the fluorescence intensity of the SiNPs increased along with the acidity increase, making the SiNPs have excellent pH and GSH sensing capability. Furthermore, the pH and GSH sensing performance of the SiNPs in the cell was verified by confocal imaging and flow cytometry experiment. Based on the above, the prepared SiNPs had the potential to be used as an intracellular pH and GSH multimode fluorescent sensing platform and exhibited the ability to distinguish between normal cells and cancer cells.
各种细胞的生理活动和代谢反应都需要在相应的 pH 环境下进行。细胞内的 GSH 作为一种酸性三肽和重要的还原物质，在维持细胞酸碱平衡和氧化还原平衡方面也起着重要作用。因此，开发一种监测细胞内 pH 和 GSH 及其变化的方法是必要的。在此，我们开发了一种新型的荧光硅纳米粒子（SiNPs），使用 -(2-氨基乙基)-3-氨丙基三甲氧基硅烷作为硅源，二硫苏糖醇作为还原剂，通过一锅水热法制备。值得一提的是，SiNPs 的荧光强度随酸度的增加而增加，使得 SiNPs 具有优异的 pH 和 GSH 传感能力。此外，通过共聚焦成像和流式细胞术实验验证了 SiNPs 在细胞中的 pH 和 GSH 传感性能。基于上述结果，所制备的 SiNPs 有望成为一种用于细胞内 pH 和 GSH 多模式荧光传感的平台，并表现出区分正常细胞和癌细胞的能力。
