Enhanced and tunable fluorescent quantum dots within a single crystal of protein

• Published in: Nano research 2013-09, Vol.6 (9), p.627-634
• Main Authors: Wei, Hui, House, Stephen, Wu, Jiangjiexing, Zhang, Jiong, Wang, Zidong, He, Ying, Gao, Elizabeth J., Gao, Yigui, Robinson, Howard, Li, Wei, Zuo, Jianmin, Robertson, Ian M., Lu, Yi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Biomedicine; Biotechnology; Cadmium sulfides; Chemistry and Materials Science; Condensed Matter Physics; Crystallography; Crystals; Fluorescence; Lysozyme; MATERIALS SCIENCE; Microscopy; Nanomaterials; Nanoparticles; Nanostructure; Nanotechnology; Optical properties; Porous materials; Proteins; Quantum dots; Research Article; Single crystals; Tomography; 单晶; 可调谐; 溶菌酶晶体; 纳米杂化材料; 荧光特性; 蛋白质; 透射电子显微镜; 量子点
• ISSN: 1998-0124; 1998-0000
• DOI: 10.1007/s12274-013-0348-0

The design and synthesis of bio-nano hybrid materials can not only provide new materials with novel properties, but also advance our fundamental understanding of interactions between biomolecules and their abiotic counterparts. Here, we report a new approach to achieving such a goal by growing CdS quantum dots （QDs） within single crystals of lysozyme protein. This bio-nano hybrid emitted much stronger red fluorescence than its counterpart without the crystal, and such fluorescence properties could be either enhanced or suppressed by the addition of Ag（I） or Hg（II）, respectively. The three-dimensional incorporation of CdS QDs within the lysozyme crystals was revealed by scanning transmission electron microscopy with electron tomography. More importantl~ since our approach did not disrupt the crystalline nature of the lysozyme crystals, the metal and protein interactions were able to be studied by X-ray crystallography, thus providing insight into the role of Cd（II） in the CdS QDs formation.