Systematic investigation of the influence of CdTe QDs size on the toxic interaction with human serum albumin by fluorescence quenching method

Quantum dots (QDs) are complementary tools to the organic fluorescent dyes used in biological system. Investigation of QDs biological toxicity has attracted great interest for their depth application. Here, the fluorescence quenching method was used to investigate the influence of CdTe QDs size on the toxic interaction with human serum albumin (HSA). Two aqueous-compatible CdTe QDs with maximum emission of 535 nm (green-emitting QDs, G-QDs, 2.04 nm) and 654 nm (red-emitting QDs, R-QDs, 3.79 nm) were tested. The fluorescence quenching results indicated that the quenching effect of QDs on HSA fluorescence depended on the size and the nature of quenching is not dynamic but probably static, resulting in forming QDs–HSA complexes. The binding constants and the number of binding sites between R-QDs and HSA were higher than those of G-QDs. The results illustrated that the size of CdTe quantum dots affected the affinity for HSA and the increasing size of QDs enhanced the affinity for HSA. The values of lg Ka are proportional to the number of binding sites (n). This result confirms the method used here is suitable to study the toxic interaction between QDs and HSA.