Quantum dots/particle-based immunofluorescence assay: Synthesis, characterization and application

Application of immunomagnetic particles to enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for improvement of detection sensitivity of HCG

This investigation was aimed at using superparamagnetic particles to enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (SPIO-ELISA) of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) to enhance detection sensitivity of hCG. We found that N-(3-dimethyl aminopropyl)-N'-ethylcarbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC) was the best cross-linking reagent to link anti hCG α antibody to superparamagnetic particle (SPIO-anti hCG α antibody immunomagnetic particle). To improve the specificity of the assay, a horse radish peroxidase (HRP)-labeled anti-hCG beta monoclonal antibody was used to detect captured hCG using double antibody sandwich ELISA assay. SPIO-ELISA application to determine hCG increased the sensitivity to 1 mIU/mL, which is a level of sensitivity enabling the diagnosis of pregnancy during the early gestational period.

Size-Dependent Non-FRET Photoluminescence Quenching in Nanocomposites Based on Semiconductor Quantum Dots CdSe/ZnS and Functionalized Porphyrin Ligands

We review recent experimental work to utilize the size dependence of the luminescence quenching of colloidal semiconductor quantum dots induced by functionalized porphyrin molecules attached to the surface to describe a photoluminescence (PL) quenching process which is different from usual models of charge transfer (CT) or Foerster resonant energy transfer (FRET). Steady-state and picosecond time-resolved measurements were carried out for nanocomposites based on colloidal CdSe/ZnS and CdSe quantum dots (QDs) of various sizes and surfacely attached tetra-mesopyridyl-substituted porphyrin molecules (“Quantum Dot-Porphyrin” nanocomposites), in toluene at 295 K. It was found that the major part of the observed strong quenching of QD PL in “QD-Porphyrin” nanocomposites can neither be assigned to FRET nor to photoinduced charge transfer between the QD and the chromophore. This PL quenching depends on QD size and shell and is stronger for smaller quantum dots: QD PL quenching rate constants scale inversely with the QD diameter. Based on the comparison of experimental data and quantum mechanical calculations, it has been concluded that QD PL quenching in “QD-Porphyrin” nanocomposites can be understood in terms of a tunneling of the electron (of the excited electron-hole pair) followed by a (self-) localization of the electron or formation of trap states. The major contribution to PL quenching is found to be proportional to the calculated quantum-confined exciton wave function at the QD surface. Our findings highlight that single functionalized molecules can be considered as one of the probes for the complex interface physics and dynamics of colloidal semiconductor QD.

Tapping the potential of quantum dots for personalized oncology: current status and future perspectives

Cancer is one of the most serious health threats worldwide. Personalized oncology holds potential for future cancer care in clinical practice, where each patient could be delivered individualized medicine on the basis of key biological features of an individual tumor. One of the most urgent problems is to develop novel approaches that incorporate the increasing molecular information into the understanding of cancer biological behaviors for personalized oncology. Quantum dots are a heterogeneous class of engineered fluorescent nanoparticles with unique optical and chemical properties, which make them promising platforms for biomedical applications. With the unique optical properties, the utilization of quantum dot-based nanotechnology has been expanded into a wide variety of attractive biomedical applications for cancer diagnosis, monitoring, pathogenesis, treatment, molecular pathology and heterogeneity in combination with cancer biomarkers. Here, we focus on the clinical application of quantum dot-based nanotechnology in personalized oncology, covering topics on individualized cancer diagnosis and treatment by in vitro and in vivo molecular imaging technologies, and in-depth understanding of the biological behaviors of tumors from a nanotechnology perspective. In addition, the major challenges in translating quantum dot-based nanotechnology into clinical application and promising future directions in personalized oncology are also discussed.

New integrated elemental and molecular strategies as a diagnostic tool for the quality of water soluble quantum dots and their bioconjugates

Herein, we demonstrate that both qualitative molecular and quantitative elemental data obtained from size exclusion chromatography coupled online for the first time to both molecular fluorescence and elemental mass spectrometry, respectively, turned out to be critical to evaluate the quality of coatings of quantum dots. Moreover, such an instrumental approach also allowed us to study quantitatively the appropriated bioconjugation of quantum dots to antibodies, a critical step for QDs future use in quantitative fluorescence immunoassays.