Stable Luminescent Poly(Allylaminehydrochloride)-Templated Copper Nanoclusters for Selectively Turn-Off Sensing of Deferasirox in β-Thalassemia Plasma.

Hung-Ju Lin,Cheng-Wei Cheng,Hwang-Shang Kou,Shou-Mei Wu,Chun-Chi Wang

doi:10.3390/ph14121314

Abstract

Highly stable and facile one-pot copper nanoclusters (Cu NCs) coated with poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) have been synthesized for selectively sensing deferasirox (DFX) in β-thalassemia plasma. DFX is an important drug used for treating iron overloading in β-thalassemia, but needs to be monitored due to certain toxicity. In this study, the PAH-Cu NCs showed highly stable fluorescence with emission wavelengths at 450 nm. The DFX specifically interacted with the copper nanocluster to turn off the fluorescence of the PAH-Cu NCs, and could be selectively quantified through the fluorescence quenching effect. The linear range of DFX in plasma analyzed by PAH-Cu NCs was 1.0–100.0 µg/mL (r = 0.985). The relative standard deviation (RSD) and relative error (RE) were lower than 6.51% and 7.57%, respectively, showing excellent reproducibility of PAH-Cu NCs for sensing DFX in plasma. This method was also successfully applied for an analysis of three clinical plasma samples from β-thalassemia patients taking DFX. The data presented high similarity with that obtained through a capillary electrophoresis method. According to the results, the PAH-Cu NCs could be used as a tool for clinically sensing DFX in human plasma for clinical surveys.

Highlights

Sensing technology for fast detection has become a major field in detection strategies, such as the detection of COVID-19
poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH)-Cu NC fluorescent method has potential for clinical application to sense DFX in error (RE) of the three samples was less than 10.73%, indicating the data obtained from β-thalassemia patients
CuSO4 (≥99.0%), poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH, Mw~17500), L-ascorbic acid (LAA), hydrochloric acid (HCl), amino acids, and EDTA were purchased from SigmaAldrich

Summary

Introduction

Sensing technology for fast detection has become a major field in detection strategies, such as the detection of COVID-19. Cu NCs exhibit many advantages, they are unstable without the protection of certain materials. For this reason, many studies have developed and used various materials to increase the stability of Cu NCs, such as protein [8,9,10], DNA [11,12], amino acid [13], polymer [14], or thiols [15,16,17] components. We propose a one-pot method for synthesis of highly stable Cu NCs by using poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) as a protecting agent and L-ascrobic acid (LAA) as a reducing agent. PAH has been used as the reducing agent [18], protecting agent [19], and coating material [20,21]

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion