Abstract
Luminescent nanomaterials have emerged as attractive candidates for sensing, catalysis and bioimaging applications in recent years. For practical use in bioimaging, nanomaterials with high photoluminescence, quantum yield, photostability and large Stokes shifts are needed. While offering high photoluminescence and quantum yield, semiconductor quantum dots suffer from toxicity and are susceptible to oxidation. In this context, atomically precise gold nanoclusters protected by thiol monolayers have emerged as a new class of luminescent nanomaterials. Low toxicity, bioavailability, photostability as well as tunable size, composition, and optoelectronic properties make them suitable for bioimaging and biosensing applications. In this review, an overview of the sensing of pathogens, and of in vitro and in vivo bioimaging using luminescent gold nanoclusters along with the limitations with selected examples are discussed.
Highlights
Imaging methods play a central role in understanding the structural and functional biological processes of biomolecules, cells, tissues, organs, and even entire living organisms [1,2]
The unique chemical, optical and catalytic properties of gold nanoclusters have led to rapid progress in their application
This can be attributed to tunable photoluminescence, low toxicity, high bioavailability and renal clearance
Summary
Address: 1Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University School of Science, Puumiehenkuja 2, FI-02150, Espoo, Finland, and 2Bioproducts and Biosystems, Aalto University School of Chemical Engineering, Kemistintie 1, FI-02150, Espoo, Finland.
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