Understanding the selective-sensing mechanism of lysine by fluorescent nanosensors based on graphene quantum dots.

The selectivity of single-amino acid nanosensors is still not well understood. Herein, the factors that govern graphene-based nanomaterials for the selective detection of lysine are reported to guide the design of single-amino acid nanosensors. Graphene quantum dots (GQDs), nitrogen-doped GQDs (N-GQDs), and nitrogen/sulfur co-doped GQDs (N,S-GQDs) were used to sense lysine.