Biosynthesis of Biocompatible Cadmium Telluride Quantum Dots Using Yeast Cells

摘要

We demonstrate a simple and efficient biosynthesis method to prepare easily harvested biocompatible cadmium telluride(CdTe)quantum dots(QDs)with tunable fluorescence emission using yeast cells.Ultraviolet-visible(UV-vis)spectroscopy,photoluminescence(PL)spectroscopy,X-ray diffraction(XRD),and transmission electron microscopy(TEM)confirm that the CdTe QDs are formed via an extracellular growth and subsequent endocytosis pathway and have size-tunable optical properties with fluorescence emission from 490 to 560 nm and a cubic zinc blende structure with good crystallinity.In particular,the CdTe QDs with uniform size(2-3.6 nm)are protein-capped,which makes them highly soluble in water,and in situ bio-imaging in yeast cells indicates that the biosynthesized QDs have good biocompatibility.This work provides an economic and environmentally friendly approach to synthesize highly fluorescent biocompatible CdTe QDs for bio-imaging and bio-labeling applications.