Dual-QDs ratios fluorescent probe for sensitive and stable detection of insulin

Abstract

In this work, immune modified graphene quantum dot (GQD) and semiconductor quantum dot (SQD) with blue and red emission respectively were synthesized to assemble a dual-QDs ratios fluorescent probe, which could be efficient used for insulin determination. There may be the dynamic equilibrium of förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) and aggregation-induced emission (AIE) in the internal of the probe, thus emitted special dual fluorescent lights. However, this sate of probe was cleaved upon exposure to target insulin, resulting in changing of the dual fluorescent lights. The resulting ratios response can be correlated quantitatively to the concentration of insulin, and was found to have a detection limit (as low as 0.045 ng mL^-1) and rapid response time (as short as 5 min). It has been preliminarily used for ratiometric sensing of insulin in biological samples and exhibited consistency of the insulin detected results and higher stability compared with conventional ELISA. Therefore, this sensitive, rapid and stable detection system has great potential for next generation of the bioassay platform for clinical diagnosis and other applications.

Keywords: Aggregation-induced emission; Detection; Dual-QDs ratios fluorescent probe; Förster resonance energy transfer; Insulin.