Highly luminescent dinuclear terbium-probenecid cluster as an ultra-sensitive probe for AFP

Abstract It is generally accepted that the cancer should be treated as early as possible, thus, the cancer biomarker detection is of great significance, especially for the ultra-low concentration cancer biomarker. In this work, a stable dinuclear terbium-probenecid cluster Tb2(PROB)6(H2O)2(CH3OH)2 (Tb-PROB, PROB = probenecid) with ultra-high luminescence quantum yield of 83%, the highest record among the reported monomeric (zero-dimensional) lanthanide complex, is obtained based on the self-assembly of Tb3+ and drug of probenecid. Interestingly, systematic investigation indicates that Tb-PROB is a highly sensitive and selective sensor towards liver cancer biomarker of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) in both systems of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and the human serum. It shows an ultra-sensitive limit-of-detection (LOD) value of 10-4 ng/mL, which is much lower than the reported cut off AFP concentration for early diagnosis of liver cancer. More importantly, Tb-PROB shows a very short detection time of 7 min.