This study was designed to develop a highly selective and sensitive method towards fluorimetric sensing of cysteine (Cys) in water and human serum by using copper nanocluster. The Cys-CuNCs were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), FTIR, fluorescence and UV-Vis analysis. Spectroscopic evidences showed different intensities that were attributed to the different size of Cys-CuNCs. Enhancement in fluorescence intensity of copper nanoclusters with an increase in concentration of cysteine may enable them to be good candidates in detection systems. Selective recognition of cysteine in aqueous and serum samples was achieved during the formation of various copper nanoclusters (Cys-CuNCs) with different size. Under the optimized conditions, two linear range of the nanobiosensor for cysteine were between the 5 μM to 50 μM with detection limit of 2.4 μM and between 60 μM to 500 μM with detection limit of 55 μM. Fluorescence intensity increased with addition of cysteine concentration from 5 to 50 μM. The proposed low-cost nanobiosensor exhibited high reproducibility and good selectivity. It has been used also for the determination of cysteine in human serum samples with recoveries of 97-103 % and RSDs of 1.8-3.6.
In this study, DNA/gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) were used to develop an AuNC-based turn-on fluorescence probe for the analysis of mi-RNA-21, which is a potential screening biomarker for cancer detection. AuNCs on a DNA scaffold were prepared through a one-pot wet-chemical route and evaluated by transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. Experiments revealed that the fluorescence intensity of the DNA-AuNCs showed a gradual increase with the addition of the target species in a concentration range from 1pM to 10 nM. The method had a detection limit of 0.7 pM and was able to discriminate the target species from mismatched mi-RNAs very efficiently. The method was used for the determination of mi-RNA spiked human plasma samples, and was evaluated as a promising nanobiosensor for application in the selective detection of mi-RNA in various biomedical and clinical tests.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.