1. giới thiệuFluorescent metal nanoclusters (NCs) are small atom assemblies (e.g., Au, Ag and Cu nanoclusters) that consist of a few to a hundred atoms. Since the size of NCs approaches the Fermi wavelength of an electron, they show discrete, size-tunable electronic transition and strong fluorescence emission [1]. Fluorescent metal nanoclusters are usually prepared by a biomineralization manner, in which biomolecules (e.g. small thiol-molecule, polymer, protein and nucleic acid) are used as templates to mediate the formation of NCs [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] and [8]. Among them, due to excellent molecule recognition properties, cost-effectiveness, and high affinity for some metal ions, DNA has been recognized as a good template in synthesis of fluorescent metal nanoparticles [9], [10], [11] and [12]. For instance, since the first successful demonstration of DNA templated silver nanoclusters (AgNCs) by Dickson’s group in 2004 [13], DNA-AgNCs with different fluorescence emission have been widely studied and successfully applied for biosensing and bioimaging [14], [15], [16], [17], [18] and [19]. In 2010, Mokhir et al. have reported that the dsDNA could act as an efficient template for preparing fluorescent copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) at a low concentration of CuSO4[20]. Subsequently, our group has systematically investigated the effect of sequence type and sequence composition on the formation of fluorescent CuNPs. The results showed that single stranded poly-(thymine) DNA could also template CuNPs with excellent fluorescence, while dsDNA-templated CuNPs was poly(AT-TA)-dependence formation [21] and [22]. More importantly, the synthesis of DNA-CuNPs was highly efficient and could be completed within several minutes under ambient conditions, which facilitated the wide application of DNA-CuNPs in biochemical analysis [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28] and [29]. However, these NCs are not without their drawbacks. The main one is their heterogeneous populations within one sample. In addition, the stability of DNA-CuNPs and the synthetic efficiency of DNA-AgNCs are dissatisfactory, which restrict their practical application far from the laboratory.Meanwhile, gold nanoclusters (AuNCs), another example of fluorescent metal nanoclusters, have attracted great attention in the field of biochemical analysis due to its biocompatibility and photostability. It has been successfully applied to various systems studied in the academic labs and perhaps they are being developed into real products now. Unlike successful synthetic strategies and fluorescence tunability of AgNCs and CuNPs with different DNA templates, the use of DNA as a template for preparing fluorescent AuNCs has been reported in relatively few studies. Lately, DNA-AuNCs with red emission has been synthesized using dimethylamine borane (DMAB) as reducing agent [30], [31] and [32]. Blue emitting AuNCs templated by poly-(cytosine) DNA at low pH and poly-(adenine) DNA at neutral pH were also synthesized by Liu’s group [33]. However, all of these syntheses require a fairly long reaction time and complicated process, which might discourage its practical applications. Therefore, it is still a challenging problem to develop rapid and efficient strategies for synthesizing stable fluorescent DNA-AuNCs. Inspired by this challenge, herein we hope to develop a facile and fast strategy for synthesizing DNA-AuNCs and then apply them for practical application. In this strategy, different single stranded DNAs were firstly investigated for synthesizing DNA-AuNCs with (4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazineethanesulfonic acid) HEPES as reductant. The synthetic process was depicted in Scheme 1, the stock solutions of DNA were pre-incubated with reduction of HEPES in PBS buffer. Then, a certain amount HAuCl4 was added to initiate the synthesis of DNA-AuNCs. This reaction could be completed within 5 min under ambient conditions. After the effective template was identified, this high fluorescence-emissive DNA-AuNCs was employed as a label-free optical probe for Hg2+ ions detection based on Hg2+ induced fluorescence quenching. Compared with reported methods, this method is mild, fast, and without complex operations and design. Moreover, this nano-material is more suitable as a fluorescence probe for practical application due to its facile synthetic process.
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