Block copolymer-templated surface-enhanced Raman scattering-active nanofibers for hydrogen sulfide detection.

ABSTRACT

Metabolic disorders involving endogenous H2S have been linked to a variety of serious human diseases, particularly cancer. In this study, we employed nanofibers with surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity for the detection of H2S within live cells. These nanofibers were chosen for their minimal invasiveness, high spatial resolution, and enhanced SERS sensitivity. To improve the performance of SERS, highly sensitive core-shell multibranched-Au NPs (MBAuNP)@Ag NPs were decorated on the nanofibers as SERS tags for H2S detection. A SERS probe named MBN, embedded between the Au core and Ag shell, was utilized for quantitative detection. These nanofibers exhibited excellent reproducibility (relative standard deviation (RSD) within 5.7 %) and demonstrated a strong linear relationship with sulfide concentrations ranging from 50 nM to 1 µM, with an estimated detection limit of 0.12 nM. As a proof of concept, the aforementioned nanofibers were successfully applied to detect endogenous H2S in living cells, offering a potential analytical method in the related research of detection.