Fluorescence superquenching of conjugated polyelectrolytes: applications for biosensing and drug discovery

This Applications article focuses on superquenching of the fluorescence of conjugated polyelectrolytes and related fluorescent polyelectrolytes and its applications to biosensing. Superquenching can occur for both aqueous solutions of these polymers as well as for various supported formats. For biosensing the supported formats are generally most practical. Three practical sensing applications are reviewed: nucleic acids, protease enzyme activity assays and kinase/phosphatase assays based on metal-ion-mediated superquenching.