Ultralong purely organic aqueous phosphorescence supramolecular polymer for targeted tumor cell imaging

Wei-Lei Zhou, Yong Chen, Qilin Yu, Haoyang Zhang, Zhi-Xue Liu, Xian-Yin Dai, Jing-Jing Li and Yu Liu ()
Additional contact information
Wei-Lei Zhou: Nankai University
Yong Chen: Nankai University
Qilin Yu: Nankai University
Haoyang Zhang: Nankai University
Zhi-Xue Liu: Nankai University
Xian-Yin Dai: Nankai University
Jing-Jing Li: Nankai University
Yu Liu: Nankai University

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Purely organic room-temperature phosphorescence has attracted attention for bioimaging but can be quenched in aqueous systems. Here we report a water-soluble ultralong organic room-temperature phosphorescent supramolecular polymer by combining cucurbit[n]uril (CB[7], CB[8]) and hyaluronic acid (HA) as a tumor-targeting ligand conjugated to a 4-(4-bromophenyl)pyridin-1-ium bromide (BrBP) phosphor. The result shows that CB[7] mediated pseudorotaxane polymer CB[7]/HA–BrBP changes from small spherical aggregates to a linear array, whereas complexation with CB[8] results in biaxial pseudorotaxane polymer CB[8]/HA–BrBP which transforms to relatively large aggregates. Owing to the more stable 1:2 inclusion complex between CB[8] and BrBP and the multiple hydrogen bonds, this supramolecular polymer has ultralong purely organic RTP lifetime in water up to 4.33 ms with a quantum yield of 7.58%. Benefiting from the targeting property of HA, this supramolecular polymer is successfully applied for cancer cell targeted phosphorescence imaging of mitochondria.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18520-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-18520-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18520-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().