Highly Stable Fluorescent-Traffic-Light Sensor for Point-of-Care Detection of Tetracycline

Abstract

Fluorescent point-of-care (POC) sensors have found great utility in fields like clinical diagnosis, food testing, and environmental monitoring. Herein, we developed a highly stable POC sensor that enabled the visual detection of tetracycline (TC) in a distinct fluorescent-traffic-light manner. In the sensor, a composite material of copper nanoclusters and metal–organic framework (CuNCs@MOF-5) prepared with a facile one-pot synthetic strategy was employed as the core element for target recognition and signal transduction. As evidenced by experiments, the as-prepared CuNCs@MOF-5 exhibited significantly improved fluorescence properties in terms of emission enhancement (about 28-fold) and stability improvement (over 110 days) compared to the CuNCs without confining and protection by MOF-5. More importantly, it was found that TC could uniquely interact with Zn­(II) to trigger the disassembly of CuNCs@MOF-5, resulting in green fluorescence emission from the TC–Zn­(II) complex and red fluorescence weakening of CuNCs. On the basis of this finding, a simple and stable sensor was proposed for POC detection of TC, which demonstrated high sensitivity, selectivity, and reproducibility. In addition to homogeneous visual detection in a 96-well plate, a CuNCs@MOF-5-contained agarose gel array was easily fabricated to achieve direct detection of TC in milk without any pretreatment, thanks to the size-sieving effect of the gel. Moreover, a test paper array was also put forward for low-cost TC detection, which indicates the extensibility and practicability of this sensing strategy.

Silver Nanoparticles In Situ Enhanced Electrochemiluminescence of the Porphyrin Organic Matrix for Highly Sensitive and Rapid Monitoring of Tetracycline Residues

“…Unfortunately, the overuse of TC has caused a series of serious consequences. Its accumulation in animal products has inevitably led to certain serious risks to human health. , The release of the TC residue into the environment, such as water bodies and soil through many channels (such as urine and excrement), has disrupted the equilibrium of the ecosystem and even led to drug resistance in humans. The European Union as well as the Ministry of Agriculture of China all set the maximum residue tolerance for TC as 0.1 mg/kg in milk and muscle tissues .…”

Wearable, Biocompatible, and Dual-Emission Ocular Multisensor Patch for Continuous Profiling of Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics in Tears

“…At present, a multitude of analytical strategies have been developed for detecting FQs, including high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS), fluorometric displacement sensors, − electrochemical sensors, surface-enhanced Raman scattering sensors, , and immunological or aptamer-based bioassays. − Among those methods, the concept of fluorescent array sensing mimicking a diverse set of cross-responsive flavor receptors in the animal gustatory system has proved an effective approach for distinguishing multiple targets in intricate sample media due to distinguished advantages in sensitivity, selectivity, and cross-reactivity. − The highly distinguishable fingerprinting pattern is derived from various statistical methods, eventually realizing the differentiation of individual analytes or mixtures with coexisting targets. − Therefore, the combination of fluorescent sensor arrays with machine learning algorithms has become a promising strategy to address the cross-interference when discriminating structurally similar FQs. Meanwhile, it is well recognized that dual-emission ratiometric fluorescent probes with self-calibration functionality are less susceptible to environmental interferents (e.g., temperature, background fluorescence, nonspecific molecular absorption, or instrumental fluctuation) than those with only a single fluorescence emission, thereby greatly improving the detection reproducibility and accuracy. − In this regard, the incorporation of ratiometric probes in fluorescent array sensing technology for the accurate and real-time determination of FQs from complex biological matrices becomes highly desirable.…”

ε-Poly-l-lysine: A Naturally Occurring Biodegradable Polypeptide for Selective Detection of 5-Nitroimidazole Antibiotics in Animal Products and Living Cells via Fluorescence

“…Advancement in scientific research has enabled several real-time monitoring techniques for the detection of various antibiotics. , Micellar electrokinetic chromatography, , high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), microbiological, and immunological assays such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, immunochromatographic assays, − have mainly been used for the detection of these antibiotics. Among that fluorescence-based sensing harnessed wide interest among the researchers and these mainly involve the use of metal nanoclusters, nanoparticles, − mesoporous carbon nanosheets, , metal organic cages, − and organic inorganic hybrid materials, , etc. However, the requirements of sophisticated equipment, complex sample preparation, the need for high temperatures or certain hazardous reagents, high cost, and the use of synthesized molecules as sensors severely limit their applications in real life.…”