Preparation of water-soluble fluorescent probe based on copper nanoparticles and its detection of tetracycline in meat

Abstract:

In this study, a water-soluble fluorescent probe based on copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) was synthesized using a hydrothermal method with BSA (BSA@CuNPs) as a protectant, and it was utilized to efficiently detect the concentration of tetracycline (TC). Experiments show that the emission wavelength of the BSA@CuNPs probe, excited at 328 nm, was measured to be 403 nm. Upon the addition of TC to the BSA@CuNPs probe, its fluorescence intensity at 403 nm is obviously diminished due to the keto-enol functions C=O group in TC connects with the hydroxyl group on the BSA@CuNPs probe to form a non-fluorescent complex, which can be successfully utilized for detecting TC concentration. Additionally, a good linear relationship was observed between relative fluorescence intensity (F0/F) of BSA@CuNPs probe and the TC concentration from 20 to 130 mM, and the limit of detection (LOD) was 60 nM. Furthermore, the BSA@CuNPs probe was applied to detect TC concentrations in real meat samples, with recoveries ranging from 95.4% to 102.1%, and the relative standard deviation was below 2.7%. Therefore, BSA@CuNPs probe exhibits high sensitivity and selectivity for TC, which will be used for the study of TC analysis in meat.

Key words:copper nanoparticles, water solubility, bovine serum albumin, fluorescent probe, tetracycline detection.