Fluorescent nanoprobe prepared from hyaluronic acid modified iron selenide nanoparticles for real-time detection of hyaluronidase as tumor marker

A highly sensitive nanoprobe HAPPF@FeSe₂NPs was developed for real-time detection of hyaluronidase (HAase) as tumor marker. Hyaluronic acid (HA) was first functionalized with adipic acid dihydrazide (ADH) via amide formation. Carboxyl-terminated polylactide (PLA) was then grafted to HA-ADH using EDC/NHS as coupling agents, yielding an HA-ADH-PLA (HAP) graft copolymer. Iron selenide nanoparticles (FeSe₂NPs) were surface coated with HAP by ultrasonic assisted self-assembly. Finally, the resulted HAP@FeSe₂NPs were surface-modified with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) and polyethyleneimine (PEI) to obtain HAPPF@FeSe₂NPs fluorescent nanoprobe. Analyses by FTIR, XRD, XPS, EDX, TEM, DLS, ¹H NMR and TGA confirmed the successful synthesis of the nanoprobe, and fluorescence spectroscopy proved its good detection performance. Moreover, cell imaging results demonstrated the ability of the nanoprobe to target tumor cells. MTT assay and hemolysis tests confirmed its good cyto- and hemo-compatibility. Therefore, it is concluded that HAPPF@FeSe₂NPs nanoprobe could be used in targeted tumor cell imaging for early diagnosis of cancers.