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| Au@SiO2@CuInS2–ZnS/Anti-AFP fluorescent probe improves HCC cell labeling |
| Yi-Wen Dai a , Li-Xin Zhu b , Yan Zhang b , Shu-Hui Wang c , Kui Chen c , Tong-Tong Jiang d , Xiao-Liang Xu c , Xiao-Ping Geng a , ∗ |
a Division of General Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230601, China
b Division of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230022, China
c Key Laboratory of Strongly-Coupled Quantum Matter Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
d Department of Physics, Anhui University, Hefei 230020, China
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: xp_geng@163.net (X.-P. Geng). |
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Abstract Background: Clear tumor imaging is essential to the resection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This study aimed to create a novel biological probe to improve the HCC imaging.
Methods: Au nano-flower particles and CuInS2–ZnS core-shell quantum dots were synthesized by hydrothermal method. Au was coated with porous SiO 2 and combined with anti-AFP antibody. HCC cell line HepG2 was used to evaluate the targeting efficacy of the probe, while flow cytometry and MTT assay were used to detect the cytotoxicity and bio-compatibility of the probe. Probes were subcutaneously injected to nude mice to explore light intensity and tissue penetration.
Results: The fluorescence stability of the probe was maintained 100% for 24 h, and the brightness value was 4 times stronger than that of the corresponding CuInS2–ZnS quantum dot. In the targeting experiment, the labeled HepG2 emitted yellow fluorescence. In the cytotoxicity experiments, MTT and flow cytometry results showed that the bio-compatibility of the probe was fine, the inhibition rate of HepG2 cell with 60% Cu-QDs/Anti-AFP probe and Au-QDs/Anti-AFP probe solution for 48 h were significantly different (86.3% ± 7.0% vs . 4.9% ± 1.3%, t = 19.745, P < 0.05), and the apoptosis rates were 83.3% ± 5.1% vs. 4.4% ± 0.8% ( P < 0.001). In the animal experiment, the luminescence of the novel probe can penetrate the abdominal tissues of a mouse, stronger than that of CuInS2–ZnS quantum dot.
Conclusions: The Au@SiO2@CuInS2–ZnS/Anti-AFP probe can targetedly recognize and label HepG2 cells with good bio-compatibility and no toxicity, and the strong tissue penetrability of luminescence may be helpful to surgeons.
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2019, Vol. 18 
