State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Department of Macromolecular Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200438, China.
Division of Theoretical Chemistry and Biology School of Biotechnology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-10691, Stockholm, Sweden.
Nat Commun. 2019 Feb 13;10(1):731. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-08684-2.
Visualized sensing through fluorescence signals is a powerful method for chemical and physical detection. However, the utilization of fluorescent molecular probes still suffers from lack of precise signal self-calibration in practical use. Here we show that fluorescence and thermally activated delayed fluorescence can be simultaneously produced at the single-molecular level. The thermally activated delayed fluorescence serves as a sensing signal with its wavelength and lifetime both altered correlating to polarity, whereas the fluorescence always remains unchanged as an internal reference. Upon the establishment of a three-dimensional working curve upon the ratiometric wavelength and photoluminescence lifetime vs. polarity, disturbance factors during a relevant sensing process can be largely minimized by such a multiple self-calibration. This strategy was further applied into a precise detection of the microenvironmental polarity variation in complex phospholipid systems, towards providing new insights for convenient and accurate diagnosis of membrane lesions.
通过荧光信号进行可视化传感是用于化学和物理检测的一种强大方法。然而，在实际应用中，荧光分子探针的使用仍然存在缺乏精确信号自校准的问题。在这里，我们展示了在单分子水平上可以同时产生荧光和热激活延迟荧光。热激活延迟荧光作为一种传感信号，其波长和寿命都发生变化，与极性相关，而荧光则始终保持不变作为内部参考。通过建立一个三维工作曲线，对极性的荧光和磷光寿命进行比率测量，可以在很大程度上最小化相关传感过程中的干扰因素。这种策略还进一步应用于复杂磷脂体系中微环境极性变化的精确检测，为方便、准确地诊断膜损伤提供了新的思路。
