Biofunctionalization of Fluorescent Rare-Earth-Doped Lanthanum Phosphate Colloidal Nanoparticles

✍ Scribed by Felix Meiser; Christina Cortez; Frank Caruso

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 191 KB
• Volume: 116
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0044-8249
• DOI: 10.1002/ange.200460856

✦ Synopsis

In recent years, the utilization of nanoparticles (NPs) for conjugation with biomolecules has attracted widespread interest. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] In particular, fluorescent semiconductor colloidal nanoparticles, or quantum dots (QDs), have played an important role in the application of NPs in biomedical applications. [1][2][3] Compared with their organic fluorophore counterparts, QDs can be prepared with high chemical stability, high quantum yield, and can exhibit high resistance to photobleaching. In addition, the optical properties of QDs can be tuned by controlling their size through synthesis. A range of biomolecules, such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and proteins, have been conjugated to QDs and used in labeling studies. [1] For example, QD bioconjugates have been used in the fluorescent labeling of cells, [2,3] agglutination assays, [3] in vitro detection assays, [8] and most recently, in selective and generalized imaging of live cells. [9][10][11] Despite the wide and successful use of QDs in diverse biomedical studies,