A new carbon dot (CD)-based nanoprobe for the ratiometric fluorescence detection of DNA was constructed in this work. Thiazole orange (TO), a specific organic small molecular probe toward DNA, is covalently linked to the surface of CDs, acting as the recognition element and the fluorescence response unit. In the absence of DNA, the nanoprobe only emitted the blue fluorescence of CDs, whereas TO was almost nonfluorescent. Upon addition of DNA, a turn-on emission at 530 nm appeared and gradually enhanced along with the increasing of the target DNA, whereas the fluorescence of CDs was unchanged, which realized the ratiometric detection of the target DNA. The CD-TO nanoprobe showed good selectivity to parallel G-quadruplex (G4) and double-stranded (ds) DNA over antiparallel G4 and single-stranded DNA. Moreover, the ratiometric fluorescence nanoprobe exhibited high sensitivity for ssab (a dsDNA) and c-myc (a parallel G4) with a low detection limit of 0.90 and 3.31 nM, respectively. Additionally, the G4/hemin peroxidase activity inhibition experiment demonstrated that CD-TO bound to the G4s through the end-stacking mode.
Keywords: DNA; G-quadruplex; carbon dots; ratiometric fluorescence; thiazole orange.