“…Attributed to the elegant work of the direct preparation of water-soluble SiQDs, various kinds of SiQD-based photoluminescent biosensors have been elaborately developed. The target analytes include lactate dehydrogenase, hydrogen ion, glucose, heavy metal ions, DNA, thiols, cancer cells and bacteria [ 41 , 42 , 43 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 ]. The sensing mechanisms of the SiQD-based biosensors for the analytes are based on metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) [ 46 ], inner filter effect (IFE) [ 68 ], fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) [ 73 ], surface energy transfer (SET) [ 74 ] and so forth.…”