The monitoring of biological hypochlorous acid (HClO) in living cells is vital in clarifying its physiological functions. Generally, HClO fluorescent probes that can be used for intracellular detection are small organic molecules that require complex synthesis steps. Herein, the as-prepared WSe 2 quantum dots (QDs) without any further modification was verified to be a HClO fluorescent probe due to the unique chemical property of selenium. Compared with molecular probes, WSe 2 QDs displayed improved performance in HClO detection, such as the low limit of detection (1.1 nM), high selectivity, fast response, good aqueous solubility, friendly operation, excellent photostability, and pH-independent response. Furthermore, the most outstanding advantage of as-prepared WSe 2 QDs was their ready availability with up to the gram-large scale. WSe 2 QDs were successfully used for the detection of exogenous and endogenous HClO in living cells. Meanwhile, this probe was applied to discriminate normal cells and cancerous cells on the basal of their different HClO levels. The sensing mechanism of WSe 2 QDs to HClO was further carefully demonstrated and proposed to be HClO induced the oxidation and degradation of WSe 2 QDs into non-fluorescent products. We anticipate that the as-prepared WSe 2 QDs should have broad applications in chemical analysis and revealing the physiological function of HClO in vivo .
Indicating and regulating intracellular redox states is crucial in interrogating their dynamic biological processes in healthy and disease states. However, this goal is subjected to dynamic changes in cellular redox. Herein, an optical invertible chiral WSe 2 QDs (L-Cys-WSe 2 QDs) for indicating and regulating the dynamic changes of intracellular redox state was developed based on ligand exchange. The L-Cys-WSe 2 QDs could respond specifically to cellular GSH with excellent anti-interference capability and high stability. This chiral probe was also applied to discriminate normal and cancerous cells on the basal of their different GSH levels. The universal application in indicating the different redox states within cells was demonstrated as well. Moreover, the as-prepared chiral WSe 2 QDs displayed good glutathione peroxidase (GPx)-like activity to regulate intracellular redox state by catalytically reducing toxic H 2 O 2 in vitro and in vivo . We anticipate that the chiroptical invertible probe should have broad applications in the dynamic analysis of the redox-based process in vivo .
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