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A turn-on fluorescent probe for vitamin C based on the use of a silicon/CoOOH nanoparticle system

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Abstract

The authors describe a fluorometric method for the turn-on determination of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). The blue fluorescence of silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs; with excitation/emission maxima at 350/450 nm) is found to be quenched by CoOOH nanoparticles (NPs). In the presence of vitamin C, the CoOOH NPs are decomposed by a redox reaction between the diol group of vitamin C and CoOOH NPs. As a result, fluorescence recovers. On the basis of this finding, a fluorometric method was designed for the turn-on detection of vitamin C. Under optimal conditions, the method has a low detection limit (0.47 μM) and a linear response in the 0.5 μM to 20 μM a concentration range. It was successfully applied to the determination of vitamin C in spiked red grape and orange juice, and in vitamin C tablets.

A target-triggered dissociation of quencher-based strategy for the fluorescence “turn-on” detection of vitamin C was developed. It is based on surface energy transfer (SET) and an inner filter effect (IFE) between silicon nanoparticles and CoOOH nanoparticles as well as the redox reaction between vitamin C and CoOOH nanoparticles.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21475043, 21874042, and 21675051), Foundation of the Science & Technology Department of Hunan Province (2016SK2020), and Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018 M640753).

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Author notes

  1. Xiaogen Chen and the first author made equal contributions to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Traditional Chinese Medicine Research (Ministry of Education), College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, People’s Republic of China

    Qiujun Lu, Xiaogen Chen, Dan Liu, Cuiyan Wu, Meiling Liu, Haitao Li, Youyu Zhang & Shouzhuo Yao

  2. State Key Laboratory of Developmental Biology of Freshwater Fish, College of Life Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, People’s Republic of China

    Qiujun Lu

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  1. Qiujun Lu
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  2. Xiaogen Chen
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  3. Dan Liu
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  4. Cuiyan Wu
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  5. Meiling Liu
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  6. Haitao Li
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Correspondence to Youyu Zhang.

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Research Highlights

• A label free target-triggered dissociation of quencher-based strategy for vitamin C was designed based on vitamin C-triggered destruction of CoOOH nanoparticles

• This target-triggered dissociation of CoOOH nanoparticles-based strategy was high sensitivity

• This method has been successfully applied to the detection of vitamin C in spiked food, beverage and tablet samples with satisfactory results

• This target-triggered dissociation of quencher-based strategy will enrich the design strategies of biosensors

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Lu, Q., Chen, X., Liu, D. et al. A turn-on fluorescent probe for vitamin C based on the use of a silicon/CoOOH nanoparticle system. Microchim Acta 186, 72 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-018-3181-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-018-3181-z

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