Search

Quantum dots (QDs) are semi-conductor luminescent nanocrystals usually of 2-10 nm diameter, attracting the significant attention in biomedical studies since emerged. Due to their unique optical and electronic properties, i.e. wide absorption spectra, narrow tunable emission bands or stable, bright photoluminescence, QDs seem to be ideally suited for multi-colour, simultaneous bioimaging and cellular labeling at the molecular level as new-generation probes. A highly reactive surface of QDs allows for conjugating them to biomolecules, what enables their direct binding to areas of interest inside or outside the cell for biosensing or targeted delivery. Particularly protein-QDs conjugates are current subjects of research, as features of QDs can be combined with protein specific functionalities and therefore used as a complex in variety of biomedical applications. It is known that QDs are able to interact with cells, organelles and macromolecules of the human body after administration. QDs are reported to cause changes at proteins level, including unfolding and three-dimensional structure alterations which might hamper proteins from performing their physiological functions and thereby limit the use of QD-protein conjugates in vivo. Moreover, these changes may trigger unwanted cellular outcomes as the effect of different signaling pathways activation. In this review, characteristics of QDs interactions with certain human proteins are presented and discussed. Besides that, the following manuscript provides an overview on structural changes of specific proteins exposed to QDs and their biological and biomedical relevance., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Quantum dots (QDs) have a broad range of applications in cell biolabeling, cancer treatment, metastasis imaging, and therapeutic drug monitoring. Despite their wide use, relatively little is known about their influence on other molecules. Interactions between QDs and proteins can influence the properties of both nanoparticles and proteins. The effect of mercaptosuccinic acid-capped CdTe QDs on intercellular copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (SOD1)-one of the main enzymatic antioxidants-was investigated. Incubation of SOD1 with QDs caused an increase in SOD1 activity, unlike in the case of CdCl 2 , which inhibited SOD1. Moreover, this effect on SOD1 increased with the size and potential of QDs, although the effect became clearly visible in higher concentrations of QDs. The intensity of QD-SOD1 fluorescence, analyzed with the use of capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence detection, was dependent on SOD1 concentration. In the case of green QDs, the fluorescence signal decreased with increasing SOD1 concentration. In contrast, the signal strength for Y-QD complexes was not dependent on SOD1 dilutions. The migration time of QDs and their complexes with SOD1 varied depending on the type of QD used. The migration time of G-QD complexes with SOD1 differed slightly. However, in the case of Y-QD complexes with SOD1, the differences in the migration time were not dependent on SOD concentration. This research shows that QDs interact with SOD1 and the influence of QDs on SOD activity is size-dependent. With this knowledge, one might be able to control the activation/inhibition of specific enzymes, such as SOD1.

Cancer represents one of the main causes of human death in developed countries. Most current therapies, unfortunately, carry a number of side effects, such as toxicity and damage to healthy cells, as well as the risk of resistance and recurrence. Therefore, cancer research is trying to develop therapeutic procedures with minimal negative consequences. The use of nanomaterial-based systems appears to be one of them. In recent years, great progress has been made in the field using nanomaterials with high potential in biomedical applications. Carbon nanomaterials, thanks to their unique physicochemical properties, are gaining more and more popularity in cancer therapy. They are valued especially for their ability to deliver drugs or small therapeutic molecules to these cells. Through surface functionalization, they can specifically target tumor tissues, increasing the therapeutic potential and significantly reducing the adverse effects of therapy. Their potential future use could, therefore, be as vehicles for drug delivery. This review presents the latest findings of research studies using carbon nanomaterials in the treatment of various types of cancer. To carry out this study, different databases such as Web of Science, PubMed, MEDLINE and Google Scholar were employed. The findings of research studies chosen from more than 2000 viewed scientific publications from the last 15 years were compared., (© 2019 The Chemical Society of Japan & Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

In this study, enhancement of the electrochemical signals of etoposide (ETO) measured by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) by modifying a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with carbon quantum dots (CQDs) is demonstrated. In comparison with a bare GCE, the modified GCE exhibited a higher sensitivity towards electrochemical detection of ETO. The lowest limit of detection was observed to be 5 nM ETO. Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fluorescence microscopy (FM), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were employed for the further study of the working electrode surface after the modification with CQDs. Finally, the GCE modified with CQDs under optimized conditions was used to analyse real samples of ETO in the prostate cancer cell line PC3. After different incubation times (1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24 h), these samples were then prepared prior to electrochemical detection by the GCE modified with CQDs. High performance liquid chromatography with an electrochemical detection method was employed to verify the results from the GCE modified with CQDs.

Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) in combination with quantum dots (QDs) and their superior properties has enabled designing of the new and improved sensors. In this review, the latest novelties in development and application of FRET nanosensors employing QDs are presented. QDs offer several advantages over organic dyes - broad excitation spectra, narrow defined tunable emission peak, longer fluorescence lifetime, resistance to photobleaching and 10-100 times higher molar extinction coefficient. These properties of QDs allow multicolor QDs to be excited from one source by common fluorescent dyes without emission signal overlap and results in brighter probes comparing to conventional fluorophores. Due to these benefits, QD-FRET-based nanosensors gained a wide spread popularity in a variety of scientific areas. These sensors are most frequently applied in the domain of the nucleic acid and enzyme activity detection. Other applications are detection of peptides and low-molecular compounds, environmental pollutants, viruses, microorganisms and their toxins, QD-FRET-based immunoassays, and pH sensors., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Interaction between semiconductor nanocrystals, cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe QDs) capped with mercaptosuccinic acid (MSA) and metallothionein (MT) was investigated. MSA-capped CdTe QDs were synthesized in aqueous solution. Mixture of MT and MSA-capped CdTe QDs has been investigated by various analytical methods as follows: tris-tricine gel electrophoresis, fluorescence evaluation and electrochemical detection of catalysed hydrogen evolution. The obtained results demonstrate that MSA-capped CdTe QDs and MT do not create firmly bound stabile complex. However, weak electrostatic interactions contribute to the interaction of MT with MSA-capped CdTeQDs. It can be concluded that QDs size influences the QDs and MT interaction. The smallest QDs had the highest affinity to MT and vice versa., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) is a well-established technique to monitor interactions between biomolecules particularly DNA and proteins. Even though numerous variations of this method have been presented, challenges in the form of detection sensitivity and/or variations in the stability of the formed complex still remain. With advances in the area of nanomaterials improvements in EMSA have been also suggested. Recently, Zhang and Wang (Electrophoresis 2015, 36, 1011-1015) presented electrophoretic mobility shift method for determination of number of DNA molecules conjugated to quantum dots (QDs), which was further utilized for calculation of enzymatic activity, sequence specific DNA detection, and neutral molecule quantification., (© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

The present work is aimed to synthesize CdTe/ZnSe core/shell quantum dots (QDs) in an easy way and to explore the possibilities of its application in in vitro imaging of chicken tissue and embryo. The QDs were prepared using microwave irradiation with different temperatures, which is a very easy and less time-consuming method. Subsequently, these QDs were characterized by spectrofluorimetry, Transmission Electron Microscopy, X-ray fluorescence analysis and Dynamic Light Scattering measurement. A blueshifting of the emission was found when ZnSe was deposited on CdTe QDs. The QDs showed its fluorescence emission quantum yields up to 25%. They were applied into chicken embryos and breast muscle tissues to study their efficiency in in vitro imaging. All the QDs of different color were able to visualize in in vitro imaging. The highest fluorescence intensity was detected in the case of red QDs prepared at 100°C. The green and red QDs were possible to detect up to the depth of 3 and 4 mm of the tissue, respectively., (© 2014 The American Society of Photobiology.)

The emergence of drug-resistant bacteria and new or changing infectious pathogens is an important public health problem as well as a serious socioeconomic concern. Immunomagnetic separation-based methods create new possibilities for rapidly recognizing many of these pathogens. Nanomaterial-based techniques including fluorescent labeling by quantum dots as well as immunoextraction by magnetic particles are excellent tools for such purposes. Moreover, the combination with capillary electrophoresis in miniaturized microchip arrangement brings numerous benefits such as fast and rapid analysis, low sample consumption, very sensitive electrochemical and fluorescent detection, portable miniaturized instrumentation, and rapid and inexpensive device fabrication. Here the use of superparamagnetic particle-based fully automated instrumentation to isolate pathogen Staphylococcus aureus and its Zn(II)-containing proteins (Zn-proteins) is reported using a robotic pipetting system speeding up the sample preparation and enabling to analyze 48 real samples within 6 h. Cell lysis and Zn-protein extractions were obtained from a minimum of 100 cells with the sufficient yield for SDS-PAGE (several tens ng of proteins).

Quantum dots (QDs) are one of the most promising nanomaterials, due to their size-dependent characteristics as well as easily controllable size during the synthesis process. They are promising label material and their interaction with biomolecules is of great interest for science. In this study, CdTe QDs were synthesized under optimal conditions for 2 nm size. Characterization and verification of QDs synthesis procedure were done by fluorimetric method and with CE. Afterwards, QDs interaction with chicken genomic DNA and 500 bpDNA fragment was observed employing CE-LIF and gel electrophoresis. Performed interaction relies on possible matching between size of QDs and major groove of the DNA, which is approximately 2.1 nm., (© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

It has been already three decades, since the fluorescent nanocrystals called quantum dots (QDs) appeared and attracted attention of a broad scientific community. Their excellent not only optical but also electronic properties predetermined QDs for utilization in a variety of areas. Besides lasers, solar cells, and/or computers, QDs have established themselves in the field of (bio)chemical labeling as well as medical imaging. However, due to the numerous application possibilities of QDs, there are high demands on their properties that need to be precisely controlled and characterized. CE with its versatile modes and possibilities of detection was found to be an effective tool not only for characterization of QDs size and/or surface properties but also for monitoring of their interactions with other molecules of interest. In this minireview, we are giving short insight in analysis of QDs by CE, and summarizing the advantages of this method for QDs characterization., (© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Nanoparticles have gained increasing interest in medical and in vivo applications. Metallothionein (MT) is well known as a maintainer of metal ions balance in intracellular space. This is due to high affinity of this protein to any reactive species including metals and reactive oxygen species. The purpose of this study was to determine the metallothionein-quantum dots interactions that were investigated by spectral and electrochemical techniques. CuS, CdS, PbS, and CdTe quantum dots (QDs) were analysed. The highest intensity was shown for CdTe, than for CdS measured by fluorescence. These results were supported by statistical analysis and considered as significant. Further, these interactions were analysed using gel electrophoresis, where MT aggregates forming after interactions with QDs were detected. Using differential pulse voltammetry Brdicka reaction, QDs and MT were studied. This method allowed us to confirm spectral results and, moreover, to observe the changes in MT structure causing new voltammetric peaks called X and Y, which enhanced with the prolonged time of interaction up to 6 h., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In this study, we report a new three-dimensional (3D), bead-based microfluidic chip developed for rapid, sensitive and specific detection of influenza hemagglutinin. The principle of microfluidic chip is based on implementation of two-step procedure that includes isolation based on paramagnetic beads and electrochemical detection. As a platform for isolation process, streptavidin-modified MPs, which were conjugated via biotinylated glycan (through streptavidin-biotin affinity) followed by linkage of hemagglutinin to glycan, were used. Vaccine hemagglutinin (HA vaxi) was labeled with CdS quantum dots (QDs) at first. Detection of the isolation product by voltammetry was the end point of the procedure. The suggested and developed method can be used also for detection of other specific substances that are important for control, diagnosis or therapy of infectious diseases., (© 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.)

In this study we describe a beads-based assay for rapid, sensitive and specific isolation and detection of influenza vaccine hemagglutinin (HA). Amplification of the hemagglutinin signal resulted from binding of an electrochemical label as quantum dots (QDs). For detection of the metal and protein part of the resulting HA-CdTe complex, two differential pulse voltammetric methods were used. The procedure includes automated robotic isolation and electrochemical analysis of the isolated product. The isolation procedure was based on the binding of paramagnetic particles (MPs) with glycan (Gly), where glycan was used as the specific receptor for linkage of the QD-labeled hemagglutinin.

The bioconjugation of quantum dots (QDs) is a key process in their application for bioanalysis as well as imaging. The coupling of QDs with biologically active molecules such as peptides, nucleic acids, and/or antibodies enables their fluorescent labeling, and therefore, selective and sensitive tracking during the bioanalytical process, however, the efficiency of the labeling and preservation of the biological activity of the bioconjugate have to be considered. In this study, a new approach of the bioconjugation of CdTe-QDs and human immunoglobulin employing a small peptide is described. The heptapeptide (HWRGWVC) was synthesized and characterized by mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography, and capillary electrophoresis. Moreover, the peptide was used as a capping agent for QDs synthesis. The CdTe-QDs were synthesized by microwave synthesis (600 W, 20 min) using 3.2 mM CdCl2 and 0.8 mM Na2TeO3. The bioconjugation of QDs capped by this peptide with immunoglobulin was investigated by capillary electrophoresis and magnetic immunoextraction coupled with electrochemical detection by differential pulse voltammetry. Furthermore, the applicability of prepared bioconjugates for fluorescent immunodetection was verified using immobilized goat antihuman IgG antibody.

A diagnostics of infectious diseases can be done by the immunologic methods or by the amplification of nucleic acid specific to contagious agent using polymerase chain reaction. However, in transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, the infectious agent, prion protein (PrP(Sc)), has the same sequence of nucleic acids as a naturally occurring protein. The other issue with the diagnosing based on the PrP(Sc) detection is that the pathological form of prion protein is abundant only at late stages of the disease in a brain. Therefore, the diagnostics of prion protein caused diseases represent a sort of challenges as that hosts can incubate infectious prion proteins for many months or even years. Therefore, new in vivo assays for detection of prion proteins and for diagnosis of their relation to neurodegenerative diseases are summarized. Their applicability and future prospects in this field are discussed with particular aim at using quantum dots as fluorescent labels.

Electrochemical detection of quantum dots (QDs) has already been used in numerous applications. However, QDs have not been well characterized using voltammetry, with respect to their characterization and quantification. Therefore, the main aim was to characterize CdTe QDs using cyclic and differential pulse voltammetry. The obtained peaks were identified and the detection limit (3 S/N) was estimated down to 100 fg/mL. Based on the convincing results, a new method for how to study stability and quantify the dots was suggested. Thus, the approach was further utilized for the testing of QDs stability.

Cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxaliplatin represent three generations of platinum based drugs applied successfully for cancer treatment. As a consequence of the employment of platinum based cytostatics in the cancer treatment, it became necessary to study the mechanism of their action. Current accepted opinion is the formation of Pt-DNA adducts, but the mechanism of their formation is still unclear. Nanomaterials, as a progressively developing branch, can offer a tool for studying the interactions of these drugs with DNA. In this study, fluorescent CdTe quantum dots (QDs, λem = 525 nm) were employed to investigate the interactions of platinum cytostatics (cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxaliplatin) with DNA fragment (500 bp, c = 25 μg/mL). Primarily, the fluorescent behavior of QDs in the presence of platinum cytostatics was monitored and major differences in the interaction of QDs with tested drugs were observed. It was found that the presence of carboplatin (c = 0.25 mg/mL) had no significant influence on QDs fluorescence; however cisplatin and oxaliplatin quenched the fluorescence significantly (average decrease of 20%) at the same concentration. Subsequently, the amount of platinum incorporated in DNA was determined by QDs fluorescence quenching. Best results were reached using oxaliplatin (9.4% quenching). Linear trend (R(2) = 0.9811) was observed for DNA platinated by three different concentrations of oxaliplatin (0.250, 0.125, and 0.063 mg/mL). Correlation with differential pulse voltammetric measurements provided linear trend (R(2) = 0.9511). As a conclusion, especially in the case of oxaliplatin-DNA adducts, the quenching was the most significant compared to cisplatin and nonquenching carboplatin., (© 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

In this study, biotin-conjugated glutathione was synthesized using peptide bonding of the biotin carboxy group and amino group of the γ-glutamic acid to prepare an alternative coating for CdTe quantum dots (QDs). This type of coating combines the functionality of the biotin with the fluorescent properties of the QDs to create a specific, high-affinity fluorescent probe able to react with avidin, streptavidin and/or neutravidin. Biotin-functionalized glutathione-coated CdTe QDs were prepared by a simple one-step method using Na₂ TeO₃ and CdCl₂. Obtained QDs were separated from the excess of the biotin-conjugated glutathione by CE employing 300 mM borate buffer with pH 7.8 as a background electrolyte. The detection of sample components was performed by the photometric detection at 214 nm and LIF employing Ar⁺ ion laser (488 nm)., (Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

The use of fluorescent nanoparticles as probes for bioanalytical applications is a highly promising technique because fluorescence-based techniques are very sensitive. Quantum dots (QDs) seem to show the greatest promise as labels for tagging and imaging in biological systems owing to their impressive photostability, which allow long-term observations of biomolecules. The usage of QDs in practical applications has started only recently, therefore, the research on QDs is extremely important in order to provide safe and effective biosensing materials for medicine. This review reports on the recent methods for the preparation of quantum dots, their physical and chemical properties, surface modification as well as on some interesting examples of their experimental use.