Optical Properties and In Vitro Biological Studies of Oligonucleotide-Modified Quantum Dots

Water-soluble semiconducting nanocrystals or quantum dots (QDs) have attracted much interest in recent years due to their tuneable emission and potential applications in photonics and biological imaging. Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) processes are very important for elucidating biochemical mechanisms in vitro, and QDs constitute an excellent substrate for this purpose. In this work, new oligonucleotide-functionalised CdTe-based QDs were prepared, characterised and biologically tested. These QDs demonstrated interesting optical properties as well as remarkable in vitro behaviour and potential for a range of biological applications.