New strategies for bioconjugation to quantum dots. Study of protein-nucleic acids and protein-protein interactions using fluorescence resonance energy transfer through quantum-dot-protein conjugates

Quantum Dots (QDs) are a relative new semiconductor nanoparticles made from Cd/Se or Cd/Te with a shell of ZnS that have very excellent spectroscopic properties: broad absorption spectra, low photobleaching levels, narrow and symmetric emission bands, high quantum yields and large stoke shifts, which make them very attractive for fluorescence applications and, principally, for research studies in the biomedical field.