Fluorescent gold nanodots based sensor array for proteins discrimination.

A series of dual-ligand cofunctionalized fluorescent gold nanodots with similar fluorescence and diverse surface properties has been designed and synthesized to build a protein sensing array. Using this "chemical nose/tongue" strategy, fluorescence response patterns can be obtained on the array and identified via linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Eight proteins have been well distinguished at low concentration (A280 = 0.005) based on this sensor array. The practicability of this sensor array was further validated by high accuracy (100%) examination of 48 unknown protein samples.