Highly Fluorescent Silver Nanoclusters Stabilized by Glutathione: A Promising Fluorescent Label for Bioimaging
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A panel of silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs) protected by glutathione has been produced by collecting them on a plastic surface during an interfacial etching process. Blue-green, yellow and red emitting Ag NCs with size smaller than 2 nm exhibited distinct fluorescence properties (both emission and lifetime). In particular, the yellow emitting Ag NCs were found to reach a very high quantum yield of over 60% with a monoexponential fluorescence lifetime. These labels show no bleaching and high photostability over time and a high stability for a wide range of pH values. Cytotoxicity tests demonstrated the viability in the presence of of these luminescent probes even at high concentration (1 mg/mL). Cell studies confirmed the uptake of Ag NCs in epithelial lung cancer cells by an endocytotic process. These results show the high potential of fluorescent noble metal nanoclusters for biolabeling and imaging as alternatives to the standard fluorescent probes such as quantum dots or organic dyes.
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Highly Fluorescent Silver Nanoclusters Stabilized by Glutathione: A Promising Fluorescent Label for Bioimaging
)
Abstract
A panel of silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs) protected by glutathione has been produced by collecting them on a plastic surface during an interfacial etching process. Blue-green, yellow and red emitting Ag NCs with size smaller than 2 nm exhibited distinct fluorescence properties (both emission and lifetime). In particular, the yellow emitting Ag NCs were found to reach a very high quantum yield of over 60% with a monoexponential fluorescence lifetime. These labels show no bleaching and high photostability over time and a high stability for a wide range of pH values. Cytotoxicity tests demonstrated the viability in the presence of of these luminescent probes even at high concentration (1 mg/mL). Cell studies confirmed the uptake of Ag NCs in epithelial lung cancer cells by an endocytotic process. These results show the high potential of fluorescent noble metal nanoclusters for biolabeling and imaging as alternatives to the standard fluorescent probes such as quantum dots or organic dyes.
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Acknowledgements
Xavier Le Guevel thanks the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Health and the “Andalusian Initiative for Advanced Therapies”—Fundacion Progreso y Salud for supporting the research. Thanks to Vanessa Trouillet for the XPS measurements, Chris Schild for the TEM measurements and Dagmar Auerbach for the fluorescence correlation spectroscopy measurements. Petra König is thanked for help with the cytotoxicity evaluation and Leon Muijs for the CLSM imaging. Financial support to Gregor Jung by the German Science Foundation (DFG; JU-650/2-2) is gratefully acknowledged.
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