A strategy for the accurate detection of glucose in human serum based on the IFE effect of up-transformed nanoparticles

Abstract

Here, the inner filter effect (IFE) was applied to construct a “turn off” mode up-conversion fluorescence and colorimetric dual-reading detection platform consisting of the chromogenic substance p-phenylenediamine (PPD) and NaYF4:Yb/Er@NaYF4 core–shell up-conversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) for the detection of glucose and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) with high sensitivity and selectivity. In this strategy, hydrogen peroxide is produced in the process of glucose oxidation by catalyzing glucose oxidase (GOx). PPD is oxidized by H2O2 under the action of horseradish peroxidase (HRP), resulting in the transformation into its oxidation product PPDox, whose absorption peak coincides with the emission peak of UCNP at 540 nm, which can significantly quench the fluorescence of UCNP. The quenching efficiency is related to PPDox production, so the relationship between the glucose content and the fluorescence changes of UCNP can be established to realize the sensitive detection of glucose. UCNPs modified by –COOH and the oxidation product of PPD were negatively charged, which increased the distance between donor and recipient due to electrostatic repulsion. It was not conducive to the occurrence of distance-dependent fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), which was also verified by fluorescence lifetime test. Under the optimal experimental conditions, the linear ranges of hydrogen peroxide and glucose were 2.5 ∼ 50 and 5 ∼ 80 μmol/L with the detection limit (LOD) of 0.32 and 0.83 μmol/L, respectively, which were lower than of some reported approaches. Furthermore, the system could be applied to the detection of glucose in actual serum sample and the results were consistency of commercial glucose meters which indicated that the protocol was reliable and potential applications for clinical diagnosis.