Intracellular redox state plays an important role in regulating cell behaviors and functions, and GSH (glutathione) is considered to be the major contributing molecule to the intracellular redox state. Measurement of GSH level has been used to estimate the intracellular redox state. Recently, Prof. Yang group developed a novel and sensitive carbon dot-based nanosensor for detection of intracellular GSH concentration through assembling a disulfide bond cross-linked polymer/carbon dots multilayer shell on mesoporous silica nanoparticles surface. Through tuning the cross-linking density of disulfide bonds, the responsive concentration of GSH varied, making it available for detecting intracellular GSH concentration. The resulting nanosensor affords a novel and promising approach in detecting GSH concentrations of cells, which is of great significance on relevant applications.

The work was published on Advanced Materials with Master student Liu Ye as the first author. See details: Ye Liu, Ye Tian, Yefei Tian, Yajun Wang, Wuli Yang*, Carbon dot-based nanosensors for the detection of intracellular redox state, Advanced Materials, DOI：10.1002/adma.201503662

Article links：http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201503662/full