title: Systematic investigation of the influence of CdTe QDs size on the toxic interaction with human serum albumin by fluorescence quenching method.
abstract: Quantum dots (QDs) are complementary tools to the organic fluorescent dyes used in biological system. Investigation of QDs biological toxicity has attracted great interest for their depth application. Here, the fluorescence quenching method was used to investigate the influence of CdTe QDs size on the toxic interaction with human serum albumin (HSA). Two aqueous-compatible CdTe QDs with maximum emission of 535nm (green-emitting QDs, G-QDs, 2.04 nm) and 654 nm (red-emitting QDs, R-QDs, 3.79 nm) were tested. The fluorescence quenching results indicated that the quenching effect of QDs on HSA fluorescence depended on the size and the nature of quenching is not dynamic but probably static, resulting in forming QDs-HSA complexes. The binding constants and the number of binding sites between R-QDs and HSA were higher than those of G-QDs. The results illustrated that the size of CdTe quantum dots affected the affinity for HSA and the increasing size of QDs enhanced the affinity for HSA. The values of lgK(a) are proportional to the number of binding sites (n). This result confirms the method used here is suitable to study the toxic interaction between QDs and HSA.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Engineering, College of Life & Environment Science, Shanghai Normal University, 100 Guilin Rd, Shanghai 200234, PR China.
authors.forename: Jianbo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: Yalong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Yuanfeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jingwen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Xinlin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wei
mesh_terms: D001665:Binding Sites; D002104:Cadmium / Q000737:chemistry*; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D045663:Quantum Dots; D012709:Serum Albumin / Q000737:chemistry*; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D013691:Tellurium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D012709:Serum Albumin; D002104:Cadmium; D013691:Tellurium