Construction of Time-Resolved Luminescence Nanoprobe and Its Application in As(III) Detection

Abstract

As(III) is a toxic heavy metal which causes serious health problems. Therefore, the development of highly sensitive sensors for As(III) detection is of great significance. Herein, a turn-on luminescence resonance energy transfer (LRET) method based on luminous nanorods was designed for As(III) detection. Biotin-labelled As(III) aptamers were tagged to avidin functionalized luminous nanorods as energy donors, while graphene oxide (GO) acted as the energy acceptor. The adsorption of single-stranded DNA on graphene oxide resulted in the efficient quenching of the luminescence of the nanorods through the LRET process. In the presence of As(III), aptamers bonded to As(III) preferentially and resulted in the formation of aptamer-As(III) complexes. The aptamer-As(III) complexes were rubbed off from the GO surface due to their conformational change, which led to the recovery of the luminescence of the nanorods. A good linear relationship between the luminescence intensity and concentration of As(III) was obtained in the range from 1 to 50 ng·mL −1 , with a detection limit of 0.5 ng·mL −1 . Furthermore, the developed sensors showed good specificity towards As(III) and proved capable of detecting As(III) in the environment and food samples. The proposed time-resolved sensors provide a promising sensing strategy for the rapid and sensitive detection of As(III).Nanomaterials 2020, 10, 551 2 of 12 to bind to specific targets, many scholars have have established a variety of detection methods for hazardous substances in different foods, including biotoxins [11], foodborne pathogens [12], pesticide and veterinary drug residues [13], heavy metals [14,15] and illegal additives [16].'Persistent luminescent nanoparticles' (PLNPs) refers to a series of nanomaterials that can continuously emit luminescence after being excited [17]. Their luminescence decay time ranges from a few microseconds to several hours [18]. Since the autofluorescence lifetime of the complex system is one nanosecond or less, the decay of the background noise will soon be completed after the excitation light is turned off [18]. In contrast, the PLNPs can continuously maintain a higher intensity luminescence, thereby avoiding the interference of autofluorescence and improving the signal-to-noise ratio [17,19]. Tan's group has reported the hydrothermal synthesis of Zn 2 GeO 4 :Mn (ZGO:Mn) nanorods of different sizes by adjusting the pH of the system [20]. Unlike traditional solid-phase calcination, ZGO:Mn nanorods prepared using hydrothermal synthesis disperse better in aqueous solutions, which is more suitable for the fabrication of As(III) probes [21]. Recently, with the development of the theory, more and more optical sensors for As(III) detection based on various principles have been designed [22], including fluorescent [23][24][25][26], colorimetric [27,28], resonance Rayleigh scattering (RRS)-based [29], chemiluminescence-based [30,31] and electrochemical [31] methods. However, there are few reports of the development of As(III) time-resolved luminescence pr...

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