A new enhanced chemiluminescence reaction based on polymer dots for the determination of metronidazole

• Published in: Spectrochimica acta. Part A, Molecular and biomolecular spectroscopy Molecular and biomolecular spectroscopy, 2021-11, Vol.260, p.119992, Article 119992
• Main Authors: Haghighi Shishavan, Yalda, Amjadi, Mohammad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antibiotics; Fluorescein; Nanomaterials; Polymer dots; Sensor
• ISSN: 1386-1425
• DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2021.119992

[Display omitted] •A non-conjugated polymer dot was prepared by a simple method.•PDs were applied in NaIO4-fluorescein chemiluminescence system for the first time.•Metronidazole exhibits enhancing effect on PDs-NaIO4-fluorescein CL reaction.•A highly sensitive CL assay was developed for metronidazole. Polymer dots (PDs) with non-conjugated functional groups are attracting nanomaterials due to their ease of synthesis, the biocompatibility of precursors, and low toxicity. In this work, PDs with non-conjugated groups were synthesized with a simple and straightforward method by Schiff base reaction. Then their possible application in the chemiluminescence (CL) reactions was explored. Results were shown that PDs increased the CL intensity of the NaIO4-fluorescein system about 15 times. Regarding the CL mechanism, we proved that the emitting species is fluorescein, which can be excited by the energy transfer from the excited-state PDs. It was observed that CL emission is promoted by the interaction of metronidazole (MND) with the PDs. Therefore, we designed a novel and sensitive assay for MND based on its enhancing effect on NaIO4-fluorescein-PDs CL system. The introduced assay showed a linear response in the range of 5.0–300 nM with a detection limit of 1.5 nM. The method was used for the determination of MND in spiked plasma samples.