A Ligand System for the Flexible Functionalization of Quantum Dots via Click Chemistry

We present a novel ligand, 5-norbornene-2-nonanoic acid, which can be directly added during established quantum dot (QD) syntheses in organic solvents to generate “clickable” QDs at a few hundred nmol scale. This ligand has a carboxyl group at one terminus to bind to the surface of QDs and a norbornene group at the opposite end that enables straightforward phase transfer of QDs into aqueous solutions via efficient norbornene/tetrazine click chemistry. Our ligand system removes the traditional ligand-exchange step and can produce water-soluble QDs with a high quantum yield and a small hydrodynamic diameter of approximately 12 nm at an order of magnitude higher scale than previous methods. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by incubating azido-functionalized CdSe/CdS QDs with 4T1 cancer cells that are metabolically labeled with a dibenzocyclooctyne-bearing unnatural sugar. The QDs exhibit high targeting efficiency and minimal nonspecific binding.