Lv Qiulan, Wang Ke, Xu Dazhuang, Liu Meiying, Wan Qing, Huang Hongye, Liang Shangdong, Zhang Xiaoyong, Wei Yen
Department of Physiology, Medical School of Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, PR China.
Department of Chemistry and Jiangxi Provincial Key Laboratory of New Energy Chemistry, Nanchang University, 999 Xuefu Avenue, Nanchang 330031, China.
Macromol Biosci. 2016 Feb;16(2):223-30. doi: 10.1002/mabi.201500256. Epub 2015 Sep 16.
Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) dyes have recently attracted much attention for biomedical applications for their remarkable AIE properties. However, the hydrophobic nature of AIE dyes made them difficult to be dispersed in physiological solution and problematic for biomedical application directly. Great efforts have been made to overcome this problem, and different strategies for preparation of water dispersible AIE based nanoprobes had been explored previously. However, a facile and effective strategy is still highly desirable and of great importance for the biomedical applications of AIE dye based on nanoprobes. In this work, the fabrication of amphiphilic hyperbranched fluorescent organic nanoparticles with a core-shell structure based on an AIE dye [tetraphenylethene acrylate (TPE-O-E)] and a hyperbranched polyamino compound [polyethylene imine (PEI)] through Michael addition reaction is described for the first time. The AIE dye as well as the final product PEI-TPE-O-E was characterized in detail by a number of techniques. To test their biomedical application potential, the cell viability as well as cell imaging properties of the PEI-TPE-O-E was also examined. The results showed that the PEI-TPE-O-E organic nanoparticles presented high water dispersiblity, ultrabright fluroerescence, low cytotoxicity and excellent biocompatibility, making them promising for biological imaging and gene delivery applications.
聚集诱导发光（AIE）染料因其卓越的AIE特性，近年来在生物医学应用领域备受关注。然而，AIE染料的疏水性使其难以分散于生理溶液中，直接用于生物医学应用存在问题。此前人们已付出巨大努力来克服这一问题，并探索了不同的制备基于AIE的水分散性纳米探针的策略。然而，一种简便有效的策略对于基于纳米探针的AIE染料的生物医学应用而言，仍然非常必要且至关重要。在本工作中，首次描述了通过迈克尔加成反应，基于AIE染料[丙烯酸四苯乙烯酯（TPE-O-E）]和超支化聚氨基化合物[聚乙烯亚胺（PEI）]制备具有核壳结构的两亲性超支化荧光有机纳米颗粒。通过多种技术对AIE染料以及最终产物PEI-TPE-O-E进行了详细表征。为测试其生物医学应用潜力，还研究了PEI-TPE-O-E的细胞活力以及细胞成像特性。结果表明，PEI-TPE-O-E有机纳米颗粒具有高水分散性、超亮荧光、低细胞毒性和优异的生物相容性，使其在生物成像和基因递送应用方面具有广阔前景。
