Detection of Adulterated Honey by Fluorescence Excitation-Emission Matrices

Honey is a frequent target of adulteration through inappropriate production practices and origin mislabelling. Current methods for the detection of adulterated honey are time and labor consuming, require highly skilled personnel, and lengthy sample preparation. Fluorescence spectroscopy overcomes such drawbacks, as it is fast and noncontact and requires minimal sample preparation. In this paper, the application of fluorescence spectroscopy coupled with statistical tools for the detection of adulterated honey is demonstrated. For this purpose, fluorescence excitation-emission matrices were measured for 99 samples of different types of natural honey and 15 adulterated honey samples (in 3 technical replicas for each sample). Statistical t -test showed that significant differences between fluorescence of natural and adulterated honey samples exist in 5 spectral regions: (1) excitation: 240–265 nm, emission: 370–495 nm; (2) excitation: 280–320 nm, emission: 390–470 nm; (3) excitation: 260–285 nm, emission: 320–370 nm; (4) excitation: 310–360 nm, emission: 370–470 nm; and (5) excitation: 375–435 nm, emission: 440–520 nm, in which majority of fluorescence comes from the aromatic amino acids, phenolic compounds, and fluorescent Maillard reaction products. Principal component analysis confirmed these findings and showed that 90% of variance in fluorescence is accumulated in the first two principal components, which can be used for the discrimination of fake honey samples. The classification of honey from fluorescence data is demonstrated with a linear discriminant analysis (LDA). When subjected to LDA, total fluorescence intensities of selected spectral regions provided classification of honey (natural or adulterated) with 100% accuracy. In addition, it is demonstrated that intensities of honey emissions in each of these spectral regions may serve as criteria for the discrimination between natural and fake honey

DUV fluorescence bioimaging study of the interaction of partially reduced graphene oxide and liver cancer cells

The interaction of partially reduced graphene oxide (prGO) and Huh7.5.1 liver cancer cells was investigated by means of DUV fluorescence bioimaging. The prGO sample was obtained by the reduction (to a certain extent) of the initially prepared graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets with hydrazine. The fluorescence of the GO nanosheets increases with time of the reduction due to a change in ratio of the sp(2) and sp(3) carbon sites and the prGO sample was extracted from the dispersion after 6 min, when the intensity of the fluorescence reached its maximum. The reduction process was left to proceed further to saturation until highly reduced graphene oxide (denoted here as rGO) was obtained. GO, prGO and rGO samples were investigated by structural (scanning electron microscopy (SEM), scanning transmission electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectrometry (STEM-EDS)) and spectroscopic (UV-vis, photoluminescence (PL), Raman) methods. After that, Huh7.5.1 cells were incubated with GO, prGO and rGO nanosheets and used in bioimaging studies, which were performed on DISCO beamline of synchrotron SOLEIL. It was found that the prGO significantly enhanced the fluorescence of the cells and increased the intensity of the signal by similar to 2.5 times. Time-lapse fluorescence microscopy experiments showed that fluorescence dynamics strongly depends on the type of nanosheets used. The obtained prGO nanostructure can be easily conjugated with aromatic ring containing drugs, which opens a possibility for its applications in fluorescence microscopy monitored drug delivery

Detection of Cu2+ ions in aqueous solution via emission quenching of colloidal EuPO4 ultrasmall nanoparticles

EuPO4 and Eu3+-activated REPO4 (RE = La, Dy, Er) ultrasmall fluorescent nanoparticles (NPs) with an average diameter of 2.1 nm were prepared via colloidal synthesis and tested for sensing Cu2+ and other heavy-metal ions. The pure monoclinic monazite crystal structure (space group P121/n1) of the synthesized particles was confirmed using X-ray diffraction measurements, and transmission electron microscopy images showed round particles with a narrow particle-size distribution. The NPs exhibited intense red emission, which is characteristic of the f-f electronic transition of Eu3+, and the quenching of their emission in the presence of heavy-metal ions was revealed by dispersing colloidal particles in a TRIS buffer and then performing photoluminescence measurements. Strong quenching of the emission (at a rate of 0.195 μM−1) was observed upon the addition of Cu2+ ions over the concentration range of 0–10 μM with a limit of detection of 60 nM for Cu2+. The recovery of nearly 90% of the original emission intensity of the probe was achieved via the addition of ethylendiaminetetraacetic acid and was possible in five quenching/recovery cycles. © 201