Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Nov 9;25(21):5208.
doi: 10.3390/molecules25215208.

Recent Advances in Electrochemiluminescence and Chemiluminescence of Metal Nanoclusters

Shuang Han  1 , Yuhui Zhao  1 , Zhichao Zhang  1 , Guobao Xu  2   3
Affiliations
Review

Recent Advances in Electrochemiluminescence and Chemiluminescence of Metal Nanoclusters

Shuang Han et al. Molecules. .

Abstract

Metal nanoclusters (NCs), including Au, Ag, Cu, Pt, Ni and alloy NCs, have become more and more popular sensor probes with good solubility, biocompatibility, size-dependent luminescence and catalysis. The development of electrochemiluminescent (ECL) and chemiluminescent (CL) analytical methods based on various metal NCs have become research hotspots. To improve ECL and CL performances, many strategies are proposed, from metal core to ligand, from intermolecular electron transfer to intramolecular electron transfer. Combined with a variety of amplification technology, i.e., nanostructure-based enhancement and biological signal amplification, highly sensitive ECL and CL analytical methods are developed. We have summarized the research progresses since 2016. Also, we discuss the current challenges and perspectives on the development of this area.

Keywords: aggregation-induced emission; catalysts; chemiluminescence; electro- chemiluminescence; fluorescence; luminophore; nanoclusters; quenchers; sensors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic representation of the strategies for improving the ECL efficiency of metal NCs.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic Illustration of the proposed NIR ECL sensing strategy with Met/Au NCs as ECL tags. (A) Synthesis of Met-Au NCs-Ab2. (B) Immobilization of Met-Au NCs-Ab2 onto the GCE surface via the proposed sandwich immunoassay strategy. Reprinted from [53] with permission from ACS.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic diagram showing fabrication of the ECL aptasensor. (I) synthesis of the A3 bioconjugate (A3/Au25 NCs-Cu2O@CuNPs-DEDA) and the B3 bioconjugate (B3/Au25 NCs-TiO2 NSs), (II) working principle of the aptasensor for MUC1 and CEA simultaneous detection, and (III) a possible ECL mechanism of simultaneous cathodic and anodic ECL emissions of the Au25 NCs on an interface. Reprinted from [46] with permission from ACS.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Schematic representation versatile ECL and electrochemical detection of thrombin based on silver nanoclusters in situ synthesized by multiple signal amplification strategy. (A) DNAzyme-assisted amplification, and (B) HCR process. Reprinted from [66] with permission from Elsevier.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Schematic Illustration of the Nanocranes-Based Biosensor: (A) Target-Nucleotide Transduction-Amplification Strategy; (B) Programmable Modulation of the ECL Efficiency of Cu NCs; (C) Signal Comparison of miRNA-155 Detection (dx = Lateral Spacing of Cu NCs; ds = Particle Size of Cu NCs). Reprinted from [71] with permission from ACS.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Schematic diagram of the “on–off” ECL biosensing platform for versatile detection of thrombin and miRNA-21 based on Ag(I) ion accelerated and Ag NC-quenched ECL combined with molecular machine-triggered chain reaction and MSN double amplification. (A) The ECL process of CdSe QDs + S2O82− system; (B) The ECL process of CdSe QDs + S2O82− system with Ag(I) ions as coreaction accelerators; (C) The ECL process of CdSe QDs + S2O82− system with Ag NCs as acceptors and CdSe QDs as donors. Reprinted from [76] with permission from RSC.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Sensitive detection of kanamycin by the CL sensing strategy based on the catalysis of DNA templated Au NCs. Reprinted from [84] with permission from RSC.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Halawa M.I., Li B.S., Xu G. Novel Synthesis of Thiolated Gold Nanoclusters Induced by Lanthanides for Ultrasensitive and Luminescent Detection of the Potential Anthrax Spores’ Biomarker. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces. 2020;12:32888–32897. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c10069. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wang J., Lin X., Shu T., Su L., Liang F., Zhang X. Self-Assembly of Metal Nanoclusters for Aggregation-Induced Emission. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2019;20:1891. doi: 10.3390/ijms20081891. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Xu J., Shang L. Emerging applications of near-infrared fluorescent metal nanoclusters for biological imaging. Chin. Chem. Lett. 2018;29:1436–1444. doi: 10.1016/j.cclet.2017.12.020. - DOI
    1. Halawa M.I., Wu F., Nsabimana A., Lou B., Xu G. Inositol directed facile “green” synthesis of fluorescent gold nanoclusters as selective and sensitive detecting probes of ferric ions. Sens. Actuators B Chem. 2018;257:980–987. doi: 10.1016/j.snb.2017.11.046. - DOI
    1. Halawa M.I., Wu F., Fereja T.H., Lou B., Xu G. One-pot green synthesis of supramolecular beta-cyclodextrin functionalized gold nanoclusters and their application for highly selective and sensitive fluorescent detection of dopamine. Sens. Actuators B Chem. 2018;254:1017–1024. doi: 10.1016/j.snb.2017.07.201. - DOI

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources