Fluorescence enhancement of quercetin complexes by silver nanoparticles and its analytical application

• The system with AgNPs exhibited stronger luminescence and higher photostability.
• The Qu–AgNPs complex was used as a fluorescence probe for nucleic acids detection.
• The Qu–AgNPs system was applied in fluorescence image analysis of protoplasts.

It is found that the plasmon effect of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) helps to enhance the fluorescence intensity of the quercetin (Qu) and nucleic acids system. Qu exhibited strong fluorescence enhancement when it bound to nucleic acids in the presence of AgNPs. Based on this, a sensitive method for the determination of nucleic acids was developed. The detection limits for the nucleic acids (S/N = 3) were reduced to the ng mL−1 level. The interaction mechanism of the AgNPs-fish sperm DNA (fsDNA)–Qu system was also investigated in this paper. This complex system of Qu and AgNPs was also successfully used for the detection of nucleic acids in agarose gel electrophoresis analysis. Preliminary results indicated that AgNPs also helped to improve sensitivity in the fluorescence image analysis of Qu combined with cellular contents in Arabidopsis thaliana protoplasts.

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