DNA-Templated Fluorescent Nanoclusters for Metal Ions Detection

Abstract

DNA-templated fluorescent nanoclusters (NCs) have attracted increasing research interest on account of their prominent features, such as DNA sequence-dependent fluorescence, easy functionalization, wide availability, water solubility, and excellent biocompatibility. Coupling DNA templates with complementary DNA, aptamers, G-quadruplex, and so on has generated a large number of sensors. Additionally, the preparation and applications of DNA-templated fluorescent NCs in these sensing have been widely studied. This review firstly focuses on the properties of DNA-templated fluorescent NCs, and the synthesis of DNA-templated fluorescent NCs with different metals is then discussed. In the third part, we mainly introduce the applications of DNA-templated fluorescent NCs for sensing metal ions. At last, we further discuss the future perspectives of DNA-templated fluorescent NCs in the synthesis and sensing metal ions in the environmental and biological fields.

Application of DNA-Nanosensor for Environmental Monitoring: Recent Advances and Perspectives

“…The FAM probe can be isolated and quantified using fluorescence [ 29 ]. Fluorescent DNA-functionalized nanomaterials have many advantages in terms of DNA sequence-dependent fluorescence, easy functionalization, wide availability, water solubility, and excellent biocompatibility [ 34 ]. Binding of the heat-labile toxin LT1 gene of enterotoxin-producing E. coli with DNA probe-AuNPs induces visible change in the color of NPs from red to purple [ 35 ].…”

“…It is a useful tool to detect heavy metals in various environmental samples. Strategies to design and use DNA template–based fluorescent nanoclusters for metal ion sensing in the environmental and biological sample have been discussed in detail elsewhere [ 34 ]. Existing nanosensor for metal ion have high sensitivity, but most of the sensor require complex experimental procedures and are not free from use of costly toxic reagent.…”

Lysozyme protected Cu Nano-Cluster: A Photo Switch for the Selective Sensing of Iron (Fe2+)

“…2,5,6 Owing to the remarkable characteristics like strong fluorescence, high photostability, better water solubility, low toxicity, luminescent metal nanoclusters could serve as next generation fluorescent nanoprobes substituting the toxic quantum dots. 7,8 Incorporation of templates like proteins, 1,3,9-14 peptides, [15][16][17][18][19] polymers, [20][21][22][23][24][25] DNA [26][27][28][29][30][31] etc. could serve as stabilizing and reducing agents to enhance the structural stability, biocompatibility as well as photoluminescent property of the nanoclusters.…”

A visible-light-responsive DiSCn(3)-type fluorescent probe for the rapid, sensitive, and specific detection of tin(II) ions in aqueous solution

“…Hence, effective detection methods for metal ions are necessary. With the development of coordination chemistry and probe technique, different instrumental methods, functional nucleic acids (FNAs)-based sensors, 1,2 electrochemical biosensors, 3 aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-based luminescence probes, 4 cellulose-based sensors, 5 nanomaterials, [6][7][8] colorimetric sensors, 9 metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) 10 and so on, 11,12 have been applied to metal ion detection in recent decades.…”