Selective detection of cysteine and glutathione using gold nanorods

Abstract

One of the significant features of the present system is its ability to detect cysteine/glutathione in the presence of various other alpha-amino acids. The spectra of Au nanorods remain unaffected on addition of millimolar concentrations of various alpha-amino acids(depending upon the solubility) other than cysteine. We could selectively detect micromolar concentrations of cysteine/glutathione from a pool of alpha-amino acids, and this makes Au nanorods versatile for sensing biologically important molecular systems bearing thiol and zwitterionic groups.