Functional Nano & Soft Materials Laboratory-FUNSOM, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials & Devices, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123, China.
Nanoscale. 2012 Sep 7;4(17):5373-7. doi: 10.1039/c2nr31153d. Epub 2012 Jul 20.
We develop a new strategy of using surface functionalized small molecule organic dye nanoparticles (NPs) for targeted cell imaging. Organic dye (2-tert-butyl-9,10-di(naphthalen-2-yl)anthracene, TBADN) was fabricated into NPs and this was followed by surface modification with an amphipathic surfactant poly(maleic anhydride-alt-1-octadecene)-polyethylene glycol (C18PMH-PEG) through hydrophobic interactions to achieve good water dispersibility and bio-environmental stability. It should be noted that no additional inert materials were added as carriers, thus the dye-loading capacity of the resulting TBADN NPs is obviously higher than those of previously reported carrier-based structures. This would lead to much larger absorption and then much higher brightness. The resulting TBADN NPs possess comparable, if not higher, brightness than CdSe/ZnS quantum dots under the same conditions, with favorable biocompatibility. Significantly, TBADN NPs are readily conjugated with folic acid, and successfully applied in targeted cell imaging. These results show that water dispersible and highly stable organic NPs would be a promising new class of fluorescent probe for bioapplications in cellular imaging and labeling. This strategy may be straightforwardly extended to other organic dyes to achieve water dispersible NPs for cell imaging and drug delivery.
我们开发了一种使用表面功能化小分子有机染料纳米粒子（NPs）进行靶向细胞成像的新策略。将有机染料（2-叔丁基-9,10-二（萘-2-基）蒽，TBADN）制成 NPs，然后通过疏水相互作用用两亲性表面活性剂聚（马来酸酐-alt-1-十八烯）-聚乙二醇（C18PMH-PEG）进行表面修饰，以实现良好的水分散性和生物环境稳定性。值得注意的是，没有添加额外的惰性材料作为载体，因此所得 TBADN NPs 的染料负载能力明显高于以前报道的基于载体的结构。这将导致更大的吸收，然后更高的亮度。在相同条件下，所得 TBADN NPs 的亮度与 CdSe/ZnS 量子点相当（如果不是更高），具有良好的生物相容性。重要的是，TBADN NPs 很容易与叶酸结合，并成功应用于靶向细胞成像。这些结果表明，水分散性和高稳定性的有机 NPs 将成为用于细胞成像和标记的生物应用的一类有前途的新型荧光探针。该策略可以直接扩展到其他有机染料，以实现用于细胞成像和药物输送的水分散性 NPs。
