Highly fluorescent carbon dots as selective and sensitive “on-off-on” probes for iron(III) ion and apoferritin detection and imaging in living cells

Highly blue luminescent nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-CDs) with a fluorescence quantum yield of 42.3% were prepared by an efficient one-step pyrolytic route from ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid and urea. The as-synthesized N-CDs were demonstrated as an effective fluorescent probe for label-free, selective and sensitive recognition of Fe(3+) with a linear range of 0.5μM to 2mM and a detection limit of 13.6nM due to Fe(3+)-quenched fluorescence (turn-off). The quenched fluorescence could be turned on after the addition of apoferritin owing to the removal of ferric species from the surface of N-CDs by apoferritin, making complex N-CDs/Fe(3+) a selective apoferritin probe with a linear range of 0.1-25μM and a detection limit as low as 2.6nM. In addition, the application of this novel N-CDs-based probe for imaging Fe(3+) ions and apoferritin in living cells suggest that this sensing system has great potential applications in biosensing, bioimaging, and many other fields.