9,10-(Divinyl) Anthracene Based Bright Aggregation-Induced Emission Organic Dots for HeLa Cells Imaging.

Fluorescent organic dots have been widely utilized for various biological imaging. To obtain organic dots with high quantum yield (QY), different molecules with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property and polymers with amphiphilic are used. By encapsulating AIE molecule 9,10-divinyl anthracene (DSA) with poly(styrene-co-maleic anhydride) and poly(isobutylene-alt-maleic anhydride) (PSMA and PIMA), novel bright AIE organic dots were obtained. The prepared AIE organic dots (PSMA dots and PIMA dots) had uniform particle size distribution, spherical appearance and small particle size (about 23 nm). However, PSMA dots had higher QYs than PIMA dots, and reached about 28.9% when the mass ratio of PSMA:DSA was 1:1. After folic acid (FA) conjugating to the surface of the PSMA dots, FA-dots were obtained. FA-dots possessed uniform particle size, good optical properties, stability and biocompatibility. The FA-dots could mark the cells where folate receptors were over-expressing. cell experiment indicated that FA-dots could be endocytosed into Hela cells, and marked the cell with specific.