The laser can induce the intramolecular proton transfer of hypoxanthine on the surface of a bare noble nanomaterial, according to a recent study conducted by researchers in Institute of Intelligent Machines (IIM), Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In general, there is a vast amount of specific information in serum, which can be utilized for therapeutic ordiagnostic purposes. However, previous reports indicate that the Raman signal varies with laser power and substrate during surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) measurements.

As an intermediate of the metabolism of nucleic acids in living systems, hypoxanthine is the primary contributor to the SERS signal of serum, and it can participate in proton transfer because of its intrinsic features in different environments.

Moreover, the concentration of hypoxanthine in the serum is in the range from 0.9 to12.0 μM. The concentration of hypoxanthine in the serum is under control in the study.

The serum from the CAS Hefei Cancer Hospital was added to a concentrated metal colloid in a 1 : 1 volume ratio and the resulting solution was dried on a Si wafer. SERS was obtained from the dried solution.

The successful detection of proton transfer phenomenon of hypoxanthine in serum offers a new explanation for the differences of the SERS of serum under different experimental conditions.

Moreover, the research paves the way for real-time monitoring of the proton transfer reaction in biochemistry studies which are related to physiological and pathological events.

This work has been published on Nanoscale with the title Real-time monitoring of plasmon-induced proton transfer of hypoxanthine in serum.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (21571180 and 21505138), Special Financial Grant from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2016T90590) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2015M571950).

Schematic illustration of the proton transfer of hypoxanthine in the presence of noble metal nanoparticles under a 633 nm-wavelength laser with a power density of 11.2 mW μm^-2 (Imaged by ZHOU Binbin)

Contact:

YANG Liangbao

Institute of Intelligent Machines (http://english.iim.cas.cn/)

Tel:+86-551-65592385

Email:lbyang@iim.ac.cn.