Recent developments in analytical applications of quantum dots

This review discusses the application of quantum dots (QDs) to chemical and biological detection, for which they have excellent features, particularly size-dependent optical properties. We can summarize the main areas discussed in this review as follows: (1) QDs associated with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), chip detection and capillary electrophoresis (CE) enhance the sensitivity and the speed of detection of residues; (2) QDs are applied with other techniques, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR), fluorescence resonance-energy transfer (FRET) analysis, fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) and western blot analysis; and, (3) QDs combined with the above techniques can successfully detect DNA and protein. We also cover perspectives and challenges in analytical applications of QDs. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.