In-capillary self-assembly of quantum dots and histidine containing peptide

Herein, we developed an in-capillary assay for detecting the self-assembly between histidine containing peptide labeled with ATTO 590 (H
₄
-ATTO) and quantum dots (QDs) using fluorescence coupled capillary electrophoresis (CE-FL). QDs and H
₄
-ATTO were sequentially injected into the capillary, which yielded a new Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) signal. The efficiency of the self-assembly was affected by the molar ratio and injection interval time. This assay could further expand the application of FRET in the field of QDs-based online bioanalysis.