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An ultrasensitive MnO2-S,O-doped g-C3N4 nanoprobe for “turn-on” detection of glutathione and cell imaging

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Abstract

The utilization of nanomaterial-based probes in detecting glutathione (GSH) and cell imaging has aroused extensive attention owing to the excellent properties of nanoprobes. Herein, we have synthesized manganese dioxide-S, O co-doped graphitic carbon nitride quantum dots (MnO2-S, O-CNQDs) nanocomposite by in situ synthesis of MnO2 nanosheets in S,O-CNQDs dispersion solution. It was found that GSH could specifically bind to MnO2-S, O-CNQDs so that the fluorescence of S, O-CNQDs could be recovered. As such, a “turn-on” MnO2-S, O-CNQDs nanoprobe can be fabricated and applied to rapidly determine trace amounts of GSH. Under the optimal conditions, MnO2-S, O-CNQDs shows sensitive response to GSH in the range 10–270 μM with a detection limit of 0.307 μM (S/N = 3). The developed MnO2-S, O-CNQDs probe has demonstrated great potential to detection of GSH in biological samples and glutathione injections. What is more, MTT assay indicates that MnO2-S, O-CNQDs has low biotoxicity. The non-fluorescence MnO2-S, O-CNQDs reacts with GSH to recover the fluorescence of S, O-CNQDs in HepG2 cells. Thus, the “turn-on” fluorescence change of MnO2-S, O-CNQDs offers a potentially useful tool to monitor GSH of cancer cells.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support from the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province of China (201901D111210), Key Research Project of Science and Technology in JinZhong-Social Development Projects (Y213003), Special Project of Lvliang for Introduced High-level Science and Technology Talents (2021RC-2-33), National Natural Science Foundation of China (21874087), and Transverse Scientific Research Project of Shanxi University (2F022019056) is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Chaofan Chai and Xuefang Yang have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Basic Medical Science, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, 030001, China

    Xiaohua Yang & Wei Bian

  2. College of Pharmacy, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, 030001, China

    Chaofan Chai & Xuefang Yang

  3. Institute of Environmental Science, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, 030006, China

    Chuan Dong

  4. People’s Hospital of Lvliang, Lvliang, 033099, China

    Wei Bian

  5. Bristol Chinese Christian Church, c/o Tyndale Baptist Church, 137-139 Whiteladies Road, Bristol, BS8 2QG, UK

    Martin M. F. Choi

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  1. Chaofan Chai
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  4. Chuan Dong
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Contributions

CC and XY were involved in the conceptualization, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, data curation, and writing—original draft preparation. XY contributed to the resources, visualization, and investigation. CD contributed to the resources, and visualization. WB was involved in the conceptualization, supervision, funding acquisition, validation, and writing—original draft preparation. MMFC contributed to the writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Wei Bian.

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Chai, C., Yang, X., Yang, X. et al. An ultrasensitive MnO2-S,O-doped g-C3N4 nanoprobe for “turn-on” detection of glutathione and cell imaging. J Mater Sci 57, 7909–7922 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-022-07160-5

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