ABSTRACT
The development of advanced nanostructures that allow dynamic quantification of glucose level can contribute to tight glucose control in diabetes management and other medical/biological fields. In this paper, we demonstrated that the assemblies of the 5-amino-2-fluorophenylboronic acid modified silver nanoparticles (FPBA-AgNPs) can be employed for highly modulating, sensitive, and selective colorimetric sensing of glucose over a physiologically important concentration range of 0-20mM at a physiological pH of 7.4. The glucose-modulated assembly of the FPBA-AgNPs occurred by the regulable formation of interparticle linkages via the bridged binding of 1,2-cis-diols and 5,6-cis-diols (for furanose form; or 4,6-cis-diols for pyranose form), respectively, of a glucose molecule to two FPBA-AgNPs. The detection limit was 89.0 µM. The mean error of glucose detection in a macro-bio-system, blood serum of adult, was smaller than 10%. Furthermore, we show that the glucose level variations associated with a model biological reaction process can be monitored by using the FPBA-AgNPs, whilst with the reaction mechanism remaining nearly unchanged.