The detection of melamine base on a turn-on fluorescence of DNA-Ag nanoclusters

A label-free, ultra-sensitive and turn-on fluorescence method to detect melamine has been developed. The strategy uses the DNA-Ag nanoclusters (DNA-AgNCs) as the fluorescence probe. The fluorescence of DNA-AgNCs can be quenched in presence of Hg²⁺. However, When Hg²⁺ and melamine were reacted for 15 min at 1000 rmp then introduced into DNA-AgNCs solution, a strong fluorescence recovery could be found. Based on this methodology, the changing fluorescent intensity has a linear relationship with melamine in the range of 0.2 μM to 4 μM (R²=0.997). The detection limit down to 0.1 μM was obtained, which is 200 times lower than the melamine safety limit of 20 μM estimated by the US Food and Drug Administration. In addition, we had been successfully applied this method to detect melamine in milk powder and raw milk.