Journal
ACS NANO
Volume 16, Issue 2, Pages 2355-2368Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.1c08605
Keywords
porous organic cages; aggregation-induced emission; cell imaging; stimuli-responsiveness; host-guest encapsulation
Categories
Funding
- National Research Foundation Singapore [NRF2018-NRF-ANR007 POCE-MON]
- Ministry of Education -Singapore [MOE2018-T2-2-148, MOE2019-T2-1-093]
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Researchers have developed aggregation-induced emission (ME)-active POCs that can respond to environmental changes for bioimaging of living cells, demonstrating their potential for further biological applications.
Porous organic cages (POCs) have many advantages, including superior microenvironments, good monodispersity, and shape homogeneity, excellent molecular solubility, high chemical stability, and intriguing host-guest chemistry. These properties enable POCs to overcome the limitations of extended porous networks such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs). However, the applications of POCs in bioimaging remain limited due to the problems associated with their rigid and hydrophobic structures, thus leading to strong aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) in aqueous biological media. To address this challenge, we report the preparation of aggregation-induced emission (ME)-active POCs capable of stimuli responsiveness for enhanced bioimaging. We rationally design a hydrophilic, structurally flexible tetraphenylethylene (TPE)-based POC that is almost entirely soluble in aqueous solutions. This POC's conformationally flexible superstructure allows the dynamic rotation of the TPE-based phenyl rings, thus endowing impressive AIE characteristics for responses to environmental changes such as temperature and viscosity. We employ these notable features in the bioimaging of living cells and obtain good performance, demonstrating that the present ME-active POCs are suitable candidates for further biological applications.
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