title: Self-Assembly of Fluorescent Organic Nanoparticles for Iron(III) Sensing and Cellular Imaging.
abstract: Fluorescent organic nanoparticles have attracted increasing attentions for chemical or biological sensing and imaging due to their low-toxicity, facile fabrication and surface functionalization. In this work, we report novel fluorescent organic nanoparticles via facile self-assembly method in aqueous solution. First, the designed water-soluble fluorophore shows a weak and negligible intrinsic fluorescence in water. Upon binding with adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP), fluorescent nanoparticles were formed immediately with strongly enhanced fluorescence. These fluorescent nanoparticles exhibit high sensitivity and selectivity toward Fe(3+) sensing with detection limit of 0.1 nM. In addition, after incubation with HeLa cells, the fluorophore shows excellent imaging performance by interaction with entogenous ATP in cells. Finally, this fluorescent system is also demonstrated to be capable of Fe(3+) sensing via fluorescence quenching in cellular environment.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing , Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing , Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing , Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Qianling
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing , Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing , Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Lidong
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate / Q000378:metabolism*; D005290:Ferric Compounds / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism*; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes / Q000737:chemistry*; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D005290:Ferric Compounds; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate
keywords: Fe3+ sensing; cellular imaging; fluorescence; organic nanoparticles; self-assembly