Anti-AgingPeer Reviewed

Coassemble dopamine and GHK tripeptide into fluorescent nanoparticles for pH sensing.

Authors (5)
Fan ZhengBiomedical Nanocenter, School of Life Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, 29 East Erdos Street, Hohhot, P. R. China.
Jun GuoTerahertz Technology Innovation Research Institute, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Modern Optical System, Terahertz Science Cooperative Innovation Center, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, 516 Jungong Road, Shanghai, P. R. China.
Abdul Jamil KhanBiomedical Nanocenter, School of Life Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, 29 East Erdos Street, Hohhot, P. R. China.
Pandeng Miao
Luminescence : the journal of biological and chemical luminescence
Unknown
Published
Oct 13, 2025
View Original

Abstract

Fluorescent nanostructures have been widely applied to biomedical researches and clinical diagnosis such as biolabeling/imaging/sensing and have even acted as therapy reagents. Peptide-based fluorescent nanostructures attract recent interest from biomedical researchers. Inspired by the natural existence of GHK-Cu complex with a growth factor-like effect in human blood, here we have developed a novel approach for designing nanosensors through the co-assembling of two kinds of biomolecules. By making best use of both π-π stacking between carbon rings and the easy-oxidation property of an important transmitter molecule, dopamine (DA), we successfully built up a supersensitive and robust fluorescent pH nanosensor by co-assembling oxidized DA (DA ) with a tripeptide GHK. The GHK-DA nanostructures have a quantum yield of 20.82%, which might be the brightest one among all the current co-assembling structures merely through unmodified biomolecules. We envision this approach could open a new avenue for not only hybrid nanostructure construction, but also may inspire the bioengineering of in vivo luminescent probes.

Keywords

GHK tripeptideco-assemblyfluorescent nanostructureoxidized dopaminepH sensing

Article Metrics

Sourcepubmed

Related Research

Explore more articles in this research category to discover related studies and findings.

View more in Anti-Aging