Abstract:
Despite the adequacy of the endogenous steroid (progesterone) levels in biological functioning, elevated
levels of progesterone hormone have several physiological effects that are amplified due to its direct and
indirect uptake from the environment, food products, and medical therapy. So, it is much needed to evaluate the progesterone levels in environmental samples as well as for biological fluids. In this work, we
focused on the development of the nano sensing probe for the selective detection of progesterone among
the library of steroid hormones belonging to the class of female sex hormones. Herein, functionalization
of dipeptide is carried out at N-terminal to produce N-functionalized dipeptide (SS3), and simultaneously, its self-assembly properties are explored. Furthermore, HR-TEM imaging was also performed to
examine the morphology of the self-assembled architectures before and after the addition of the steroid
hormone. To investigate the binding mechanism of the sensing probe, Fluorescence spectroscopy,
Circular Dichroism (CD), MD-Simulation, and DFT studies were performed and studied in detail.
Moreover, to check the potency of the real-time application of the developed nanoprobe, we have successfully determined the spiked concentration of progesterone levels in pharmaceutical and biological
fluid samples with functional percentage recovery. Also, the stability and other competitive binding studies of the probe with the coexisting substances are performed to check the rationality of the sensing
probe at physiological conditions.
