A novel "off-on" fluorescent probe for the detection of nickel ions and its clinical application

Hua-Wei Yi; Xian-Mo Wang; Jia-Hao Wu; Chang-Li Zhang; Yi-Di Ding

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2023.1261178

A novel "off-on" fluorescent probe for the detection of nickel ions and its clinical application

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023 Sep 18:11:1261178. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1261178. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Hua-Wei Yi^{1

2}, Xian-Mo Wang^{1

2}, Jia-Hao Wu^{1

2}, Chang-Li Zhang³, Yi-Di Ding⁴

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory Department, The First Affiliated Hospital of Yangtze University, Jingzhou, Hubei, China.
² Laboratory Department, The First People's Hospital of Jingzhou, Jingzhou, Hubei, China.
³ Department of Pharmacy, The First Affiliated Hospital of Yangtze University, Jingzhou, Hubei, China.
⁴ Department of Infectious Diseases, Tangdu Hospital, Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.

Abstract

Nickel serves as an essential micronutrient for the human body, playing a vital role in various enzymatic processes. However, excessive nickel entering the environment can cause pollution and pose serious risks to animals, plants, and human health. High concentrations of nickel ions in the human body increase the risk of various diseases, highlighting the need for accurate measurement of nickel ions levels. In this study, we designed a sequence-specific cleavage probe for nickel (II) ion called SSC-Ni. Similar to the TaqMan probe, SSC-Ni is an off-on fluorescent probe with an exceptionally low background fluorescence signal. It exhibits high detection specificity, making it highly selective for nickel ions, and the detection limit of the probe towards Ni²⁺ is as low as 82 nM. The SSC-Ni probe can be utilized for convenient and cost-effective high-throughput quantitative detection of nickel ions in serum. Its user-friendly operation and affordability make it a practical solution. By addressing the lack of simple and effective nickel ion detection methods, this probe has the potential to contribute significantly to environmental monitoring and the protection of human health.

Keywords: clinical application; fluorescent probe; nickel ions; off-on fluorescent probe; sequence-specific cleavage.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province, China [Grant Number 2021CFB261 (to H-WY)] and Yangtze University Medical Innovation Fund of Jingzhou, China [Grant Number 2022MIF08 (to H-WY)].