title: Quantum dots based mesoporous structured imprinting microspheres for the sensitive fluorescent detection of phycocyanin.
abstract: Phycocyanin with important physiological/environmental significance has attracted increasing attention; versatile molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have been applied to diverse species, but protein imprinting is still quite difficult. Herein, using phycocyanin as template via a sol-gel process, we developed a novel fluorescent probe for specific recognition and sensitive detection of phycocyanin by quantum dots (QDs) based mesoporous structured imprinting microspheres (SiO2@QDs@ms-MIPs), obeying electron-transfer-induced fluorescence quenching mechanism. When phycocyanin was present, a Meisenheimer complex would be produced between phycocyanin and primary amino groups of QDs surface, and then the photoluminescent energy of QDs would be transferred to the complex, leading to the fluorescence quenching of QDs. As a result, the fluorescent intensity of the SiO2@QDs@ms-MIPs was significantly decreased within 8 min, and accordingly a favorable linearity within 0.02-0.8 μM and a high detectability of 5.9 nM were presented. Excellent recognition specificity for phycocyanin over its analogues was displayed, with a high imprinting factor of 4.72. Furthermore, the validated probe strategy was successfully applied to seawater and lake water sample analysis, and high recoveries in the range of 94.0-105.0% were attained at three spiking levels of phycocyanin, with precisions below 5.3%. The study provided promising perspectives to develop fluorescent probes for convenient, rapid recognition and sensitive detection of trace proteins from complex matrices, and further pushed forward protein imprinting research.
authors: †Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes and Ecological Remediation, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai 264003, China.|§University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors: Zhong
authors: Z
authors: Zhang
authors: †Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes and Ecological Remediation, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai 264003, China.
authors: Jinhua
authors: J
authors: Li
authors: †Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes and Ecological Remediation, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai 264003, China.|‡Key Laboratory in Molecular and Nanomaterials Probes of the Ministry of Education of China, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250014, China.
authors: Xiaoyan
authors: X
authors: Wang
authors: ‡Key Laboratory in Molecular and Nanomaterials Probes of the Ministry of Education of China, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250014, China.
authors: Dazhong
authors: D
authors: Shen
authors: †Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes and Ecological Remediation, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai 264003, China.
authors: Lingxin
authors: L
authors: Chen
mesh_terms: D008422:Materials Testing; D008863:Microspheres; D054802:Molecular Imprinting / Q000379:methods*; D010798:Phycocyanin / Q000032:analysis*; D016062:Porosity; D045663:Quantum Dots; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry*; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D010798:Phycocyanin; D012822:Silicon Dioxide
keywords: fluorescent detection; mesoporous structure; molecularly imprinted polymers; phycocyanin; quantum dots