Many human diseases, including metabolic, immune, and
central nervous system disorders, as well as several types of
cancers, are the consequence of an important alteration in
lipid-related metabolic biomolecules. Although recognized that one of the most important metabolic hallmarks of
cancer cells is deregulation of lipid metabolism, the multiple complex signaling pathways are poorly understood yet. Thus, in this research, novel
nanoconjugates made of ZnS
quantum dots (QDs) were directly synthesized in aqueous media using
phosphoethanolamine (PEA) as the capping
ligand, which is an important biomolecule naturally present in cells for de novo biosynthesis of
fatty acids and
phospholipids involved in the cell structure (e.g., membrane), differentiation, and
cancer growth. These QD-PEA bio-
nanoconjugates were characterized by spectroscopical and morphological techniques. The results demonstrated that fluorescent ZnS nanocrystalline QDs were produced with uniform spherical morphology and estimated sizes of 3.3 ± 0.6 nm. These
nanoconjugates indicated core-shell colloidal nanostructures (ZnS QD-PEA) with the hydrodynamic diameter (H D) of 26.0 ± 3.5 nm and ΞΆ-potential centered at -30.0 ± 4.5 mV. The cell viability response using mitochondrial activity assay in vitroconfirmed no cytotoxicity at several concentrations of PEA (biomolecule) and the ZnS-PEA
nanoconjugates. Moreover, these
nanoconjugates effectively behaved as fluorescent nanomarkers for tracking the endocytic pathways of
cancer cells using confocal
laser scanning microscopy bioimaging. Hence, these results proved that biofunctionalized ZnS-PEA nanoprobes offer prospective tools for cellular bioimaging with encouraging forecast for future applications as active fluorescent
biomarker conjugates in metabolic-related
cancer research.