N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine-Templated Formation of the Fluorescent Silver Nanocluster and its Application to Bioimaging

Abstract

Herein, a novel kind of silver nanocluster is synthesized simply by mixing N-Acetyl-L-cysteine template with silver ions and reduction reagent (NaBH4, here). We used fluorescence assay, MALDI TOF MS, and TEM to characterize the silver nanocluster. The complex can be directly employed into bioimaging HeLa cells. The cell toxicity (3-[4,5-dimethylthiazolyl-2]-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide, MTT) assay demonstrated that the silver nanocluster has only little affect on the cytotoxicity to the cells, which further proves the applicability of the method in tumor cell imaging. Our method displays a promising application space in future cancer researches.