Fluorescence dynamics of the biosynthesized CdSe quantum dots in Candida utilis

Organisms served as factories of bio-assembly of nanoparticles attracted a lot of attentions due to the safe, economic and environmental-benignity traits, especially the fabrication of the super fluorescence properties quantum dots (QDs). However, information about the developmental dynamics of QDs in living organisms is still lacking. In this work, we synthesized cadmium-selenium (CdSe) QDs in Candida utilis WSH02-08, and then tracked and quantitatively characterized the developmental dynamics (photoactivation, photostable and photobleaching processes) of bio-QDs by translating fluorescence microscopy movies into visual quantitative curve. These findings shed light on the fluorescence properties of the bio-assembled QDs and are expected to accelerate the applications of the synthesized QDs in vivo. It provided a new way to screen bio-QDs and monitor the quality of QDs in vivo.