One-step hydrothermal synthesis of fluorescent silicon nanoparticles for sensing sulfide ions and cell imaging

Chao Yang; Ting Li; Qin Yang; Yongming Guo; Tao Tao

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2022.121048

One-step hydrothermal synthesis of fluorescent silicon nanoparticles for sensing sulfide ions and cell imaging

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2022 May 15:273:121048. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2022.121048. Epub 2022 Feb 17.

Authors

Chao Yang¹, Ting Li¹, Qin Yang¹, Yongming Guo², Tao Tao¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
² School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China. Electronic address: chinahenangm@163.com.

PMID: 35219270
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2022.121048

Abstract

We have presented a hydrothermal approach for synthesizing fluorescent silicon nanoparticles (F-SiNPs) with yellow-green emission. The obtained F-SiNPs exhibited excellent stability and good biocompatibility. By virtue of the specific reaction between S^2- and 5,5'-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid) (DTNB), colorimetric assay of S^2- was realized with a good linear range of 0-100 μM. The colorimetric detection system could be further combined with F-SiNPs to construct a probe for fluorescence turn-off sensing S^2- in aqueous solution due to inner filter effect. In the fluorescent detection system, a good linearity with S^2- concentration in the range of 0-50 μM was accomplished. And as low as 0.1 μM S^2- was successfully detected. Moreover, the F-SiNPs displayed low cytotoxicity and good biocompatibility, and was further utilized for cell imaging. These results demonstrated the promising applications of F-SiNPs in S^2- analysis and bioimaging.

Keywords: Cell imaging; Detection; Fluorescent silicon nanoparticles; Sulfide ions.

MeSH terms

Colorimetry
Fluorescent Dyes
Nanoparticles*
Silicon*
Sulfides

Substances

Fluorescent Dyes
Sulfides
Silicon