Using capillary electrophoresis mobility shift assay to study the interaction of CdTe quantum dots with bovine serum albumin

In this work, the capillary electrophoresis mobility shift assay (CEMSA) was first adopted to study the interaction of protein with quantum dots (QDs). In this study, bovine serum albumin (BSA) and CdTe QDs were used as model samples. We observed that BSA was facilely adsorbed to CdTe QDs surface, and the QD–BSA complex was formed by a 1:1 stoichiometric ratio. A value of 2.17 ± 0.27 × 106 mol−1 L−1 (at 25 °C) for the association constant was obtained by CEMSA.