| Summary: | In this paper, a novel rare-earth-doped upconverted nanomaterial NaYF<sub>4</sub>:Yb,Tm fluorescent probe is reported, which can detect cancer-related specific miRNAs in low abundance. The detection is based on an upconversion of nanomaterials NaYF<sub>4</sub>:Yb,Tm, with emissions at 345, 362, 450, 477, 646, and 802 nm, upon excitation at 980 nm. The optimal Yb<sup>3+</sup>:Tm<sup>3+</sup> doping ratio is 40:1, in which the NaYF<sub>4</sub>:Yb,Tm nanomaterials have the strongest fluorescence. The NaYF<sub>4</sub>:Yb, Tm nanoparticles were coated with carboxylation or carboxylated protein, in order to improve their water solubility and biocompatibility. The two commonly expressed proteins, miRNA-155 and miRNA-150, were detected by the designed fluorescent probe. The results showed that the probes can distinguish miRNA-155 well from partial and complete base mismatch miRNA-155, and can effectively distinguish miRNA-155 and miRNA-150. The preliminary results indicate that these upconverted nanomaterials have good potential for protein detection in disease diagnosis, including early cancer detection.
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