Terbium-triggered aggregation-induced emission of bimetallic nanoclusters for anticancer drugs sensing via the inner filter effect.

The development of accurate and sensitive detection methods of anticancer drugs is of significant importance because they play vital roles in biological systems. In recent years, bimetallic nanoclusters (BMNCs) incorporating the advantages of two metals have gained more and more attention, and can be widely applied in sensing applications. In this work, for the first time, we designed a sensing platform based on terbium ion (Tb) triggered aggregation-induced emission (AIE) of BMNCs. Tb hybrid glutathione (GS) protected Ag/Cu nanoclusters (Tb@GS-AgCuNCs) were facilely fabricated according to the complexation reaction between Tb and the carboxyl group of GS. Due to the inner filter effect (IFE), the fluorescence of Tb@GS-AgCuNCs decreased significantly in the presence of anticancer drugs with 6-thioguanine and methotrexate as representatives. In addition, the sensing platform was applied to monitor 6-thioguanine and methotrexate in real serum samples, indicating that it has great potential in anticancer drugs related applications.