Bioconjugation of luminescent silicon quantum dots to gadolinium ions for bioimaging applications
Bioconjugation of luminescent silicon quantum dots to gadolinium ions for bioimaging applications
复制标题
DOI:
10.1039/c2nr31002c
复制
发表时间:
2012-01-01
期刊:
影响因子:
6.7
通讯作者:
Prasad, Paras N.
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Erogbogbo, Folarin;Chang, Ching-Wen;Prasad, Paras N.
Luminescent imaging agents and MRI contrast agents are desirable components in the rational design of multifunctional nanoconstructs for biological imaging applications. Luminescent biocompatible silicon quantum dots (SiQDs) and gadolinium chelates can be applied for fluorescence microscopy and MRI, respectively. Here, we report the first synthesis of a nanocomplex incorporating SiQDs and gadolinium ions (Gd3+) for biological applications. The nanoconstruct is composed of a PEGylated micelle, with hydrophobic SiQDs in its core, covalently bound to DOTA-chelated Gd3+. Dynamic light scattering reveals a radius of 85 nm for these nanoconstructs, which is consistent with the electron microscopy results depicting radii ranging from 25 to 60 nm. Cellular uptake of the probes verified that they maintain their optical properties within the intracellular environment. The magnetic resonance relaxivity of the nanoconstruct was 2.4 mM(-1) s(-1) (in terms of Gd3+ concentration), calculated to be around 6000 mM(-1) s(-1) per nanoconstruct. These desirable optical and relaxivity properties of the newly developed probe open the door for use of SiQDs in future multimodal applications such as tumour imaging.