A Ligand System for the Flexible Functionalization of Quantum Dots via Click Chemistry
Abstract
We present a novel ligand, 5‐norbornene‐2‐nonanoic acid, which can be directly added during established quantum dot (QD) syntheses in organic solvents to generate “clickable” QDs at a few hundred nmol scale. This ligand has a carboxyl group at one terminus to bind to the surface of QDs and a norbornene group at the opposite end that enables straightforward phase transfer of QDs into aqueous solutions via efficient norbornene/tetrazine click chemistry. Our ligand system removes the traditional ligand‐exchange step and can produce water‐soluble QDs with a high quantum yield and a small hydrodynamic diameter of approximately 12 nm at an order of magnitude higher scale than previous methods. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by incubating azido‐functionalized CdSe/CdS QDs with 4T1 cancer cells that are metabolically labeled with a dibenzocyclooctyne‐bearing unnatural sugar. The QDs exhibit high targeting efficiency and minimal nonspecific binding.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Mar 13, 2018
- Source ID
- 10.1002/anie.201801113
Entities
People
- D.J. Mooney
- Daniel Franke
- Francesca S. Freyria
- Hua Wang
- Igor Coropceanu
- Jose M. Cordero
- Moungi Bawendi
- Odin B. Achorn
- Ou Chen
- Wei He
- Yue Chen
Organizations
- Army Research Office
- Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds
- Brown University
- Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Harvard University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- National Science Foundation
- Office of Basic Energy Sciences