Nanoparticle-based Chemiluminescence for Chiral Discrimination of Thiol-Containing Amino Acids

The ability to recognize the molecular chirality of enantiomers is extremely important owing to their critical role in drug development and biochemistry. Convenient discrimination of enantiomers has remained a challenge due to lack of unsophisticated methods. In this work, we have reported a simple strategy for chiral recognition of thiol-containing amino acids including penicillamine (PA), and cysteine (Cys). We have successfully designed a nanoparticle-based chemiluminescence (CL) system based on the reaction between cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe QDs) and the enantiomers. The different interactions of CdTe QDs with PA enantiomers or Cys enantiomers led to different CL intensities, resulting in the chiral recognition of these enantiomers. The developed method showed the ability for determination of enantiomeric excess of PA and Cys. It has also obtained an enantioselective concentration range from 1.15 to 9.2 mM for PA. To demonstrate the potential application of this method, the designed platform was applied for the quantification of PA in urine and tablet samples. For the first time, we presented a novel practical application of nanoparticle-based CL system for chiral discrimination.