A cationic quantum dot-based ratiometric fluorescent probe to visually detect berberine hydrochloride in human blood serums

Berberine hydrochloride (BH) is an isoquinoline alkaloid normally used as drug to treat diseases. Compared with the traditional detection methods, the carbon quantum dots (CQDs) have better selectivity, high sensitivity, easy operation, and is inexpensive which could be widely utilized as fluorescent nanoprobes to detect various compounds quantificationally. And ratiometric fluorescent sensors conspicuously increase sensitivity and precision detection and improve quantification. In this work, we use water-soluble and fluorescent cationic carbon dots cetylpyridinium chloride monohydrate (CPC)-CQDs to connect with pinacyanol chloride (PC) and sodium tetraphenylborate (ST) as the ratiometric fluorescent probe to detect BH. The ratiometric fluorescent probe has high sensitivity towards alkaloids and metal ions, photochemical stability (60 min), and pH stability (from 6.0 to 8.0), with the detection range from 0 to 200 μM, and limit was as low as 57.35 nM. The accuracy of the method was verified by spiked recovery experiment in different human blood serums which were drawn from healthy adult volunteers to explore the practicability. The recoveries were in the range 94.34 to 105.48% with relative standard deviations (RSD) of 0.80 to 2.92%. In addition, we could observe that the fluorescence was gradually darkened, and the color turned yellow to realize the visual detection. It is expected that this work would open up a new strategy for detecting BH in the environment and human blood serums.