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Coordination polymer nanoprobe integrated carbon dot and phenol red for turn-on fluorescence detection of urease activity

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Abstract

The potential of coordination polymers (CPs) as a host of integrating multiple guest species to construct a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) nanoprobe was demonstrated. The ZnCPs built from zinc(II) and adenine was employed as a model of CPs to integrate carbon dot (CD) and phenol red (PR) for producing the FRET nanoprobe (CD/PR@ZnCPs). Benefiting from the confinement effect of ZnCPs, the integrated CD and PR can be brought in close proximity to favor the occurrence of FRET process from CD to PR, which leads to the quenching of CD fluorescence. However, the FRET process was disrupted upon the red-shift of PR absorption from 428 to 562 nm in alkaline medium, and consequently switches on the fluorescence of CD/PR@ZnCPs. Based on this finding, by utilizing urease to hydrolyze urea and mediate medium pH, a turn-on fluorescent method was established for the detection of urease activity. This fluorescent method has a linear response that covers 5 to 150 U/L urease with a detection limit of 0.74 U/L and exhibits an excellent selectivity over other enzymes. The successful determination of urease in saliva samples demonstrates the applicability of the fluorescent nanoprobe in complex biological matrix.

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The data generated in this study are provided in the main manuscript and Supplementary Information. Data are also available from the corresponding author upon request. 

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Funding

This work was supported by the Foundation of Hunan Double First-rate Discipline Construction Projects of Bioengineering, the Scientific and Technological Innovation Talent Plan of Hunan Province (2021RC1015), Hunan Provincial Education Department Project (18A455), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province (20202ACB205003), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22064011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Research and Utilization of Ethnomedicinal Plant Resources of Hunan Province, Hunan Provincial Higher Education Key Laboratory of Intensive Processing Research On Mountain Ecological Food, College of Biological and Food Engineering, Huaihua University, Huaihua, 418008, China

    Shenghua Li, Longqian Xiao & Hongliang Tan

  2. Key Laboratory of Energy Catalysis and Conversion of Nanchang, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, 330022, China

    Lingyu Xiao & Hongliang Tan

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  1. Shenghua Li
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  2. Lingyu Xiao
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Correspondence to Longqian Xiao or Hongliang Tan.

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Li, S., Xiao, L., Xiao, L. et al. Coordination polymer nanoprobe integrated carbon dot and phenol red for turn-on fluorescence detection of urease activity. Microchim Acta 190, 79 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-023-05644-y

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