Author ORCID Identifier:
Date of Graduation
5-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Cell & Molecular Biology (PhD)
Degree Level
Graduate
Department
Cell & Molecular Biology
Advisor/Mentor
Heyes, Colin
Committee Member
Chen, Jingyi
Second Committee Member
Rajaram, Narasimhan
Third Committee Member
Thallapuranam, Suresh
Keywords
CuInS2/ZnS; FGF; FRET; Ligand Exchange; Protein Corona; Quantum Dots
Abstract
Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) has been shown to be an important protein in angiogenesis, which is critical in developmental biology and wound healing but has also been implicated in cancer metastasis. FGF interacts with an FGF Receptor (FGFR) to signal the onset of angiogenesis but the detailed mechanism of angiogenesis, and particularly its regulation, is still largely unknown. Imaging the interaction of FGF with FGFR in biologically-relevant environments, such as directly in cells, is key towards furthering this understanding and may eventually aid in the development of better cancer treatments. CuInS2/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) are an attractive fluorescent probe to study such processes in-vivo due to their high brightness, photostability, and long fluorescent lifetimes. Furthermore, they do not contain toxic heavy elements such as cadmium, which is a significant drawback of more common types of QDs such as CdSe. In this study, we use a dye-labeled FGF to enable FRET between the QD and the dye to examine the hard protein corona of CuInS2/ZnS. In Chapter 2, we determined the magnitude of the photophysical effects of the dye-labeled FGF proteins in the hard corona of the quantum dot allowed for accurate quantification of FRET. In Chapter 3, we used this accurate quantification of FRET to look at the effect on the QD ligands on the binding of the proteins to the hard corona. At low FGF concentrations, the FRET efficiency rapidly increases, highlighting the quantitative tight binding of dye-labeled FGF to the QD, especially on QDs ligand exchanged with the positively charged ligand, CysAm. Using that tight binding effect, in Chapter 4, FRET was able to be used to back calculate the QD concentration and subsequent molar extinction coefficient. This resulted in a Rapid FRET-based Approach for the calculation of the molar extinction coefficient of CuInS2-based Quantum Dots, that eliminated the limitations of determining the size and morphology using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and determining the composition using Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP), presented in current publications.
Citation
Robinson, C. (2026). FRET Studies on the Binding of Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) Proteins to the Hard Corona of CuInS2-based Quantum Dots. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/6213
