A novel highly fluorescent S, N, O co-doped carbon dots for biosensing and bioimaging of copper ions in live cells

In this study, novel highly fluorescent sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen co-doped carbon dots (S, N, O-CDs) were prepared from m-phenylenediamine and sulfamide by using the hydrothermal method. The prepared S, N, O-CDs show high doping rate and fluorescence yield as well as long-term fluorescence stability. In addition, S, N, O-CDs show good fluorescence response towards Cu(2+) over a concentration range of 2–60 μM with a detection limit of 0.29 μM. Taking advantages of the properties of S, N, O-CDs including high selectivity and low cytotoxicity, S, N, O-CDs were successfully applied for Cu(2+) sensing and imaging in the cells and O(2)˙(−)-induced Cu(2+) increase in the cells was observed. Furthermore, on account of strong complexation between Cu(2+) and pyrophosphate ion (PPi) as well as specific hydrolysis ability of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) towards PPi, PPi and ALP were further detected with high selectivity based on S, N, O-CDs/Cu(2+) system. The prepared S, N, O-CDs showed good detection results for PPi and ALP with detection limits of 0.44 μM and 1.03 U L(−1), respectively. Moreover, the developed method also realized PPi and ALP detection in real samples.