Volume 6, Issue 1 2100811
Research Article
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Accurate and Real-Time Detection Method for the Exothermic Behavior of Enzymatic Nano-Microregions Using Temperature-Sensitive Amino-AgInS2 Quantum Dots

Hui Zhang

Hui Zhang

Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Education Ministry, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049 P. R. China

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Youshen Wu

Youshen Wu

School of Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049 P. R. China

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Peng Tang

Peng Tang

Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Education Ministry, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049 P. R. China

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Hongrui Zhu

Hongrui Zhu

Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Education Ministry, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049 P. R. China

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Zhenhai Gan

Zhenhai Gan

Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Education Ministry, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049 P. R. China

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Hu-Qin Zhang

Hu-Qin Zhang

Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Education Ministry, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049 P. R. China

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Daocheng Wu

Corresponding Author

Daocheng Wu

Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Education Ministry, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049 P. R. China

E-mail: [email protected]

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First published: 10 November 2021

Abstract

The thermal behavior of enzymes in nanoscale is of great significance to life phenomena. This nonequilibrium state real-time thermal behavior of enzymes at nanoscale cannot be accurately detected by existing methods. Herein, a novel method is developed for the detection of this thermal behavior. The enzyme-quantum dot (QD) conjugates can be obtained by chemically grafting temperature-sensitive amino-AgInS2 QDs to the enzyme, where the QDs act as nanothermometers with a sensitivity of −2.82% °C−1. Detecting the photoluminescence intensity changes of the enzyme-QD conjugates, the real-time thermal behavior of enzymes can be obtained. The enzyme-QD conjugates show a temperature difference as high as 6 °C above ambient temperature in nano-microregions with good reproducibility (maximum error of 4%) during catalysis, while solution temperature hardly changed. This method has a temperature resolution of ≈0.5 °C with a detection limit of 0.02 mg mL−1 of enzyme, and spatially ensured that the amino-AgInS2 QDs are quantitatively bound to the enzyme; thus, it can accurately detect the exothermic behavior of the enzyme and can be extended to other organisms’ detection. This method has high sensitivity, good stability, and reliability, indicating its great potential application in investigating the thermal behavior of organisms in nanoscale and related life phenomena.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

Research data are not shared.

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