Investigation into BSA stabilized Au Nanoclusters as a Fluorescence Probe for Glucose

Abstract

protein encapsulated gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) as biosensors have attracted increasing attention in the sugar detecting market due to its distinctive physicochemical properties. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of fluorescent gold nanoclusters based on BSA for glucose sensing. This was achieved through material characterization using UV-VIS spectroscopy, fluorescence emission spectra and fluorescence lifetime decay for BSA-AuNCs with and without different concentrations of glucose. It was observed monotonic decrease of fluorescence emission at excitation 290 nm with the increase of glucose concentration, with saturation at higher concentration values (20 mM). For excitation at (295nm) it was observed a significant effect, but for higher excitation(470nm) no clear correlation could be inferred . The measurement of fluorescence lifetime decay also showed a visible effect of the increase in glucose concentration. Still, it was observed that the effect between gold nanoclusters and glucose is relatively weak compared with tryptophan and glucose. Therefore, BSA-AuNC does not appear to have great potential for glucose sensing.