Analytica Chimica Acta最新文献

{"title":"Electrochemical synthesis of ultra-compact gold hexagonal nanostar substrate for enhanced and stable SERS detection","authors":"Jingjing Wang, Waqas Ahmad, Yuzhen Liang, Yi Xu, Tianhui Jiao, Peipei Qi, Xingyu Lin, Quansheng Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.aca.2025.344779","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2025.344779","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Background</h3>Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) amplifies Raman signals via localized fields on nanostructured metallic substrates. The fabrication of efficient substrates remains challenging, as nanolithography and templating are complex, while chemical reduction and self-assembly often suffer from low reproducibility and limited stability.<h3>Results</h3>A rapid electrochemical deposition strategy is reported to synthesize gold hexagonal nanostar by precise modulation of particle size and spacing. The formation process is governed by a voltage-dependent balance between Au⁺ ion reduction kinetics and diffusion. Low overpotentials limit growth to small tip-localized features, while moderate potentials (–0.60 to –0.65 V) accelerate lateral expansion, increasing diameter and reducing spacing. At higher overpotentials (–0.70 to –0.75 V), diffusion-consumption imbalance drives vertical growth, widening spacing despite limited diameter gain. By programming deposition voltages and intervals, the gold hexagonal nanostars were tuned to an optimal diameter of 141.22 nm and an interparticle spacing of 14.72 nm. The resulting three-dimensional nanostructures generated abundant electromagnetic \"hot spots,\" with a 44-fold SERS improvement over conventional counterparts. The substrates exhibited excellent signal uniformity with a relative standard deviation as low as 4.27%. The electrochemically active surface area <em>via</em> gold oxide stripping reaction, absorption rate and theoretical simulations were also computed.<h3>Significance</h3>The engineered SERS substrate was successfully administered for direct ultrasensitive detection of malachite green and levofloxacin with high recovery rates in real fish and aquaculture samples. This template-free, programmable approach provides a scalable pathway for constructing high-performance SERS substrates, offering significant potential for applications in food safety monitoring and environmental analysis.","PeriodicalId":240,"journal":{"name":"Analytica Chimica Acta","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145288836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Synthesis and characterization of Coumarin-Quinoline based NIR Probes for Viscosity: Mitochondria-Targeted Probe with Superior Performance in Autophagy and Liver Injury Imaging","authors":"Lei Sun, Wenze Zhang, Chaoran Li, Jiangwei Tian, Jiwei Li, Haijun Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.aca.2025.344782","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2025.344782","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Background</h3>Near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent probes with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties are highly desirable for biomedical imaging. Viscosity is a critical parameter reflecting microenvironment stability, and abnormal mitochondrial viscosity is linked to many diseases and cellular dysfunctions. Therefore, it is of important significance to develop new NIR fluorescent probes that can monitor the variations of mitochondrial viscosity accurately and in real time.<h3>Results</h3>we developed three new NIR fluorescent probes (QI-1, QI-2, QI-3) based on a coumarin-quinoline structure with a donor-π-acceptor (D-π-A) design. These probes exhibit strong intramolecular charge transfer (ICT). Compared with the compounds QI-2 and QI-3, QI-1 showed outstanding performance, including excellent AIE behavior, a large Stokes shift, high quantum yield and high sensitivity to viscosity. Biological studies confirmed that QI-1 selectively localizes in mitochondria. This enables real-time monitoring of viscosity changes during cellular autophagy and in a mouse model of drug-induced (APAP) liver injury.<h3>Significance</h3>This work presents a rational and effective design strategy for developing NIR fluorescent probes with AIE characteristics, specifically tailored for sensing microenvironmental viscosity. Probes based on this strategy allow for non-invasive, high-contrast visualization of pathophysiological processes across multiple biological scales, ranging from subcellular organelles to tissue microenvironments. This lays the foundation for advanced diagnostics and a deeper mechanistic understanding of mitochondrial dysfunction-related diseases.","PeriodicalId":240,"journal":{"name":"Analytica Chimica Acta","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145288838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enantioseparation of tropic acid by biphasic enantioselective liquid-liquid extraction: Experimental and simulation","authors":"Chenggong Zhou, Shaofen Lai, Zhihong Yan, Weiyang Tang, Genlin Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.aca.2025.344790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2025.344790","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Background</h3>Nowadays, accessing optically-pure compounds from chiral drugs on a large scale in an eco-friendly and cost-effective manner remains one of the greatest challenges. Racemic separation is still the most effective approaches. And meanwhile, as one of the methods, biphasic recognition chiral extraction (BRCE) strategy, is widely recognized as a highly promising technique for industrial implementation due to its advantages of high efficiency, broad versatility, and facile scalability. The configuration of BRCE facilitates capacity expansion to multi-kilogram production scales, unconstrained by the bed-height limitations inherent to fixed-bed chromatographic systems. (88)<h3>Results</h3>Herein we first present, employing hydrophilic β-cyclodextrin and hydrophobic tartaric acids as the collaborative chiral additives for BRCE process to improve the efficiency of enantio-separation tropic acid mixture. The screening of chiral additives and organic solvents for BRCE framework were systematically investigated, along with the developed system was used to optimize experimental conditions in depth, including concentration of tropic acid and chiral additives, aqueous pH, and operational temperature, using response surface methodology (RSM) method. The maximum enantioselectivity (<em>α</em>) and enantiomeric excess (<em>e.e.</em>%) up to 2.28 and 12.3% were achieved by the BRCE system which is more-efficient than previous extraction systems. The principle of BRCE strategy mainly refers to the host-guest stereoselective affinity and phase transfer, forming labile diastereoisomeric complexes with the assistance of the density functional theory (DFT) method. (127)<h3>Significance</h3>The enhanced performance is attributed to the simultaneous biphasic recognition of both <em>R</em>- and <em>S</em>-tropic acid. This study provides critical insights for developing enhanced BRCE systems tailored to specific enantio-separation applications. Furthermore, the differing stereochemical preferences under thermodynamic and kinetic conditions could be strategically leveraged to further enhance enantio-separation efficiency through sequential BRCE framework. (55)","PeriodicalId":240,"journal":{"name":"Analytica Chimica Acta","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145288837","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Multimodal cation exchange-type tyrosine-based chiral stationary phases: Synthesis and applications in high-performance liquid chromatography","authors":"Magdaléna Labíková, Ondřej Znamínko, Marie Kloubcová, Wolfgang Lindner, Thomas Rosenau, Hubert Hettegger, Michal Kohout","doi":"10.1016/j.aca.2025.344750","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2025.344750","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Background</h3>High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) using chiral stationary phases (CSPs) is among the most prevalent techniques for the separation of enantiomers. Among the most widespread CSPs, those containing ion-exchangers as chiral selectors (SOs) have emerged as powerful tools for the separation of polar and polarizable compounds. In addition to well-established commercial materials, such as Cinchona alkaloid-based chiral weak anion exchangers (WAX) and zwitterionic ion-exchange phases (ZWIX), chiral cation-exchange CSPs represent a valuable alternative. These materials have demonstrated broad applicability in the enantioseparation of racemic amines, encompassing a wide spectrum of pharmaceutical compounds. This study presents the design, synthesis, and chromatographic evaluation of novel multimodal chiral cation exchangers for HPLC.<h3>Results</h3>These CSPs innovatively combine the principles of both donor-acceptor and cation-exchange interactions by implementing a 3,5-dinitrobenzoyl tyrosine core with either a sulfonic acid (<em>i.e.</em>, strong cation exchanger, SCX-type, <strong>CSP I</strong> and <strong>II</strong>) or a carboxylic acid moiety (<em>i.e.</em>, weak cation exchanger, WCX-type, <strong>CSP III</strong>) as the respective ion exchange sites. A key feature of the synthetic strategy was the efficient covalent immobilization of the chiral selectors onto the silica support <em>via</em> a copper(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition reaction (<em>i.e.</em>, <em>click chemistry</em>). The chromatographic performance of the CSPs was systematically investigated under polar organic (PO) mode conditions for the enantioseparation of various chiral basic analytes. The influence of the mobile phase composition – including solvent polarity and the nature and concentration of acidic and basic additives – on retention as well as chemo- and enantioselectivity was thoroughly studied. Furthermore, the successful enantioseparation of uncharged analytes under normal phase (NP) conditions could be demonstrated.<h3>Significance</h3>This work introduces improved tyrosine-based CSPs that effectively integrate donor-acceptor and cation-exchange functionalities, rendering them a versatile and powerful addition to the available toolkit for challenging chiral separations.","PeriodicalId":240,"journal":{"name":"Analytica Chimica Acta","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145288839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Molecular enrichment integrated with soft voting for efficient SERS detection of multiple drugs","authors":"Min Zhao, Xuanhua Yan, Jitao Sun, Jing Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.aca.2025.344789","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2025.344789","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Background</h3>Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is regarded as a powerful tool for rapid drug identification in the liquid phase. However, the implementation of SERS for drug detection in the liquid phase remains constrained by two critical limitations: inadequate molecular enrichment efficiency at hotspots and spectral interpretation difficulties arising from complex multi-analyte interactions. Besides, manual scrutiny of large-scale SERS datasets is painstakingly slow and overwhelmingly labor-intensive. Currently, it is clear that an effective molecular enrichment strategy combined with machine learning models with high accuracy are research hotspots. (85)<h3>Results</h3>We designed a novel AuNPs@AgCl (Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) modified with activated sealing layer of AgCl) substrate through the reaction of Cl^- ions and Ag⁺ ions to address these issues. This substrate achieved ultralow detection limits for diverse substances: 4 × 10⁻¹¹ M for crystal violet, 0.2 ppm for morphine, 12.5 ppm for methamphetamine, and 10 ppm for methadone. Meanwhile, the results showed that the AuNPs@AgCl substrate was able to quantify methadone spiked in lake water, artificial saliva and artificial blood with a lower limit of detection of 50 ppb, 0.8 ppm, and 0.6 ppm, respectively. Furthermore, we developed a soft voting classifier which incorporates random forest (RF), extra-trees (ET), XGBoost and support vector machine (SVM) models. This architecture delivers 90.7% average accuracy in classifying 6 drugs combinations (unary/binary mixtures), outperforming single-algorithm approaches by 21.4-26.7%. (134)<h3>Significance</h3>This rationally designed substrate effectively improved the probability of analytes falling into hotspots and enhanced SERS stability. Besides, the soft voting classifiers have demonstrated their great potential to improve the classification accuracy for both unary and binary drugs in a balanced manner. This synergistic combination of molecular enrichment and soft voting classifier holds great potential for drug detection applications. (59)","PeriodicalId":240,"journal":{"name":"Analytica Chimica Acta","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145288840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cascade catalysis-based signal amplification for colorimetric detection of acetylcholinesterase and its inhibitors","authors":"Runze Zhang, Kang Wang, Jinheng Wei, Lu Cheng, Zaiwei Wen, Yong Zhao, Lijun Xu, Renjun Pei","doi":"10.1016/j.aca.2025.344784","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2025.344784","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Background</h3>Cascade catalysis represents a fundamental physiological process and serves as a highly effective strategy for signal amplification in biosensing. Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) is a pivotal enzyme in neurological function, acting not only as a critical biomarker for neurodegenerative diseases but also as a primary target for pharmaceuticals and pesticides. Consequently, the detection of AChE activity and the screening of its inhibitors are essential for clinical diagnostics, drug development, and environmental monitoring. Reliable methods for trace-level AChE analysis remain a critical challenge that needs to be addressed promptly<h3>Results</h3>We reported a novel AChE-urease cascade catalysis amplification strategy for the colorimetric detection of AChE activity and its inhibitors. In this system, AChE catalyzes the hydrolysis of thioacetylcholine chloride (ATCh) to produce thiocholine (TCh). TCh then binds to Ag⁺ via its thiol group, thereby alleviating the inhibitory effect of Ag⁺ on urease activity. Urease with high activity catalyzes urea hydrolysis, leading to a rise in pH, which is monitored using the pH indicator phenol red. Leveraging cascade catalysis, this method achieves highly sensitive detection of AChE with a limit of detection (LOD) as low as 0.0116 mU/mL. The feasibility for inhibitor screening was validated using dipterex and berberine as model inhibitors, yielding IC₅₀ values of 28 ng/mL and 14.4 μM, and LODs of 0.394 ng/mL and 0.23 μM, respectively.<h3>Significance</h3>These results present a novel signal amplification strategy relying on enzyme cascade catalysis. This approach boasts advantages like simplicity, high sensitivity, and low cost. It not only holds promising applications in detecting AChE and its inhibitors for agriculture, medicine, and biosensing but also may extend to other enzymes that mediate thiol transformations.","PeriodicalId":240,"journal":{"name":"Analytica Chimica Acta","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145283900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Porous SERS Microneedle for Multiplex Detection of Glucose, Uric Acid, and Cholesterol in Interstitial Fluid","authors":"Geng Zhu, Yang Wang, Xi Yang, Cheng Chen, Xiaoyi Lv, Yan Huang, Xiangwei Zhao","doi":"10.1016/j.aca.2025.344788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2025.344788","url":null,"abstract":"To detect glucose, uric acid and cholesterol in interstitial fluid simultaneously for prognosis of metabolic syndrome (MetS), a porous surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) microneedle was fabricated by integrating SERS probes and three kinds of enzyme in three independent areas of one porous microneedle, respectively. Paraffin wax was used as a hydrophobic barrier to segment a porous microneedle to three independent areas, in which gold nanoshells (used as SERS substrates), 4-mercaptophenylboronic acid (4-MPBA), and one of glucose oxidase, urate oxidase, and cholesterol oxidase were integrated, respectively, and thus SERS probes altered SERS signals under the action of enzymes on their substrates. In vitro experiments demonstrated stable and accurate detection within the ranges of 0-15 mM glucose, 0-0.9 mM uric acid, and 0-9 mM cholesterol. Animal studies confirmed its feasibility for in vivo use. This porous SERS microneedle offers a minimally invasive and convenient solution for multiplex detection and point-of-care diagnosis in patients.","PeriodicalId":240,"journal":{"name":"Analytica Chimica Acta","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145288916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Heavy metal marker-amplified recognition analysis: enhanced water body differentiation via carbon nanomaterial fluorescence and machine learning","authors":"Jiadeng Chen, Wen Zeng, Guijiao Wen, Tao Lin, Chenghui Li, Xiandeng Hou","doi":"10.1016/j.aca.2025.344786","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2025.344786","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Background</h3>Traditional water monitoring methods usually track multiple elements and rely on multi-dimensional data for dimensionality reduction, but they primarily focus on assessing water resource information and spatiotemporal changes rather than effectively distinguished between regional water bodies. Distinguishing regional water bodies is essential for sustainable resource management. Therefore, it is important to establish new strategy for fast and efficient recognition analysis of water bodies.<h3>Result</h3>This study develops a novel fluorescent sensor array based on carbon nanomaterials (CDs, CNSs, CNPs) and machine learning for efficient differentiation of regional water bodies, to which heavy metal markers was added. The concept of heavy metal marker was proposed to amplify the recognition analysis, i.e., a heavy metal marker system comprising of Pb²⁺, Zn²⁺, Cd²⁺ and Ni²⁺ was engineered as signal amplifiers, markedly amplifying fluorescence disparities through competitive binding interaction between the nanomaterials and sample matrices. By combining linear discriminant analysis (LDA), the system achieved 100% classification accuracy validated by near-zero Wilks' Lambda values for both adjacent water bodies and cross-regional counterparts. The sensor exhibits exceptional anti-interference capability, accurately differentiating high-salinity and polluted water sources. Simultaneously, it can achieve high spatial resolution in water source discrimination, resolving adjacent sources separated by &lt;2 km.<h3>Significance</h3>As a proof of concept of heavy metal marker with a combination of Pb²⁺, Zn²⁺, Cd²⁺, and Ni²⁺ as an example, it was proved that adding the markers is an efficient way to achieve the best discrimination goal. This approach may provide a reliable tool for pollution source tracing, demonstrating significant potential for environmental monitoring applications in the future.","PeriodicalId":240,"journal":{"name":"Analytica Chimica Acta","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145283901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Innovative Design of CXCR4 Cyclic Peptide via Molecular Docking for 99mTc-Labeled SPECT/CT Imaging in Melanoma","authors":"Xianrui Yin, Xin Wang, Chengwei Chen, Shenglan Jia, Wanhong Li, Yihong Wu, Xin Chen, Danling Feng, Wai Ping Cecilia Tsang, Zhihao Han, Yueqing Gu","doi":"10.1016/j.aca.2025.344754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2025.344754","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Backgroud</h3>The chemokine receptor CXCR4 is a crucial target for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer due to its close association with tumor growth, metastasis, invasiveness, and prognosis.<h3>Results</h3>The cyclic peptides KC1 and KC1E, along with their radiolabeled conjugates [^99mTc]Tc-HYNIC-KC1 and [^99mTc]Tc-HYNIC-KC1E, were successfully synthesized. The binding affinity of KC1 toward the CXCR4 receptor was evaluated using Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR). Furthermore, key physicochemical and biological properties of the radiotracers were systematically assessed, including the oil-water partition coefficient (LogP), in vitro stability in normal saline solution and mouse serum, in vivo SPECT/CT imaging performance in a B16-F10 tumor-bearing mouse model, and biodistribution profiles following intravenous administration.<h3>Significance</h3>A novel cyclic peptide, KC1, was designed and shown to exhibit selective binding to the CXCR4 receptor. Molecular docking simulations were performed to elucidate the potential interaction mechanism between KC1 and CXCR4. The radiolabeled derivative [^99mTc]Tc-HYNIC-KC1E was synthesized and demonstrated favorable in vivo imaging performance in B16-F10 tumor-bearing mice, supporting its potential as a promising imaging agent for CXCR4-positive tumors.","PeriodicalId":240,"journal":{"name":"Analytica Chimica Acta","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145283903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Detection of Mercury in Single Mammalian Cells at Attogram Level by SC-ICP-MS","authors":"Xueyan Wang, Po Tang, Hao Liu, Yingying Li, Hua Guo, Pengyang Li, Deming Han, Nian Liu, Lihong Liu, Bin He, Ligang Hu, Guibin Jiang","doi":"10.1016/j.aca.2025.344787","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2025.344787","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Background</h3>Mercury (Hg), a global pollutant, poses health risks to humans and mammals even at low exposure levels. However, current analytical methods face challenges in quantifying cellular Hg at ultralow concentrations. In this study, we developed a sensitive single-cell inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (SC-ICP-MS) method by utilize a temperature-controlled introduction system to trace Hg in individual mammalian cells.<h3>Results</h3>Sensitivity was significantly enhanced through a personalized tuning process, which increased the instrument sensitivity of Hg ions (Hg²⁺) by 28.8%. Through optimization of detection conditions, we achieved an improved transport efficiency (TE) of 27.3% for single-cell detection in THP-1 cells. By implementing the comprehensively optimized method, we attained an exceptionally low single-cell-level Hg mass detection limit (<em>LOD</em>_<em>m</em>) of 0.01 fg per cell, coupled with a cell density detection limit (<em>LOD</em>_<em>d</em>) of 8.1×10² cells mL^-1, resulting in a Hg concentration detection limit (<em>LOD</em>_<em>c</em>) of 0.008 ng L^-1. This validated method demonstrated robust applicability across multiple mammalian cell types, revealing that Hg content (<em>m</em>) at the single-cell level exhibited exponential growth with increasing exposure concentration, while the heterogeneity of Hg displayed an initial rise before reaching a plateau or decreasing.<h3>Significance</h3>This study establishes a highly sensitive and reproducible method for monitoring single-cell Hg content and heterogeneity at environmentally low exposure levels. The technical advances provide a robust methodological foundation for assessing element-specific toxicity across different mammalian cell types, supporting the health risk evaluation in low-dose scenarios.","PeriodicalId":240,"journal":{"name":"Analytica Chimica Acta","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145288915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}