Strategies for preparing fluorescently labelled polymer nanoparticles

There is great interest in the use of fluorescent polymer nanoparticles as optical imaging agents. When designing and synthesising a fluorescent polymer nanoparticle imaging agent there is a large variety in both the particle formation and dye attachment strategies that can be pursued. In this mini-review we detail this range of possibilities, illustrating with examples from the literature, and highlighting particular advantages in each case. (c) 2014 Society of Chemical Industry