title: When molecular probes meet self-assembly: an enhanced quenching effect.
abstract: We demonstrate that the incorporation of one or two amino acids of phenylalanine (F) or 4-fluoro phenylalanine ((f)F) will greatly lower the background fluorescence intensities of conventional quenched probes with quenchers. This enhanced quenching effect was due to the synergetic effect of the aggregation caused quenching and the presence of a quencher. Such strategy will not greatly affect the enzyme recognition properties to the probes. We also demonstrated that our self-assembled nanoprobe with the enhanced quenching effect showed a better performance in cells for the detection of cell apoptosis than the unassembled probes. Our study demonstrates that using molecular self-assembly can optimize and improve the performance of molecular probes and it provides a simple but very useful strategy to boost the signal-to-noise ratios of fluorescence probes.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology and College of Pharmacy, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Drug Research, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071 (P.R. China) http://www.yang-lab.org; State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Key Laboratory of Bioactive Materials, Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Nankai University, Tianjin 300071 (P.R. China).
authors.forename: Chunhua
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Huaimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Duo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.forename: Xiaoli
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Qianqi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Fengzhao
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Deling
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Zhimou
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000187:drug effects; D016650:Fluorescein-5-isothiocyanate / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism / Q000633:toxicity; D031541:Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism / Q000633:toxicity; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D015335:Molecular Probes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000633:toxicity; D010455:Peptides / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D012235:Rhodamines / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism / Q000633:toxicity; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D015335:Molecular Probes; D010455:Peptides; D012235:Rhodamines; D016650:Fluorescein-5-isothiocyanate
keywords: fluorescence quenching; molecular probes; peptide; self-assembly