Assembling aggregation‐induced emission with natural DNA to maximize donor/acceptor ratio for efficient light‐harvesting antennae

Abstract

Arranging dense donors around a single acceptor for the assembly of efficient light‐harvesting antennas is a long‐standing challenge due to the intractable aggregation‐caused quenching of dense donors. Herein, we designed a cationic aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) amphiphile to self‐assemble with natural DNA duplexes. As an efficient donor, the as‐prepared cationic AIE amphiphile could be densely attached to the phosphate groups of natural DNA duplexes by using the smaller cationic trimethylammonium. The long alkyl chain between the cationic trimethylammonium and the AIE fluorophore allowed for avoiding the insufficient binding caused by the steric hindrance of the AIE fluorophore, resulting in a remarkably high donor/acceptor ratio comparable to that of the widely developed custom DNA assemblies. The proposed self‐assembly strategy provided novel flexible avenues for the assembling of finely controlled and efficient light‐harvesting systems into natural DNA with little synthetic modifications and low cost.

Advances of fluorescent DNA nanostructures in biomedical applications

“…With the developments of AIE techniques, the modification of AIE molecules has been employed to further enlarge the biological application of AIE-based DNA nanostructures. For example, a hydrophobic TPE was designed to be bound to an oligonucleotide, 160 which greatly enhanced the condensation properties of DNA (Figure 5D). As designed, two complementary DNA-TPE sequences were close for the hybrid (dsDNA-(TPE) 2 ) in an Mg 2+ -containing buffer, which induced the self-assembly for obtaining spherical nanostructures.…”

Construction of a supramolecular light-harvesting system based on pillar[5]arene-mediated nanoparticles in water

“…[51][52][53] In this context, the synergistic integration of AIE with supramolecular self-assembly offers significant advantages for the fabrication of ALHSs. [54][55][56][57] Recently, fluorophores based on cyanostilbene (CS) have garnered considerable attention owing to their distinctive fluorescence properties. [58][59][60][61][62] CS derivatives often exhibit weak emission in organic solvents but display remarkable fluorescence in aqueous environments.…”

Enhanced chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer using surfactant‐modified AIE carbon dots

“…However, conventional CRET acceptors, typically fluorescent dyes, often suffer from aggregation‐caused quenching when highly concentrated in confined nanospaces [23–25]. To address this issue, aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) materials, which exhibit efficient luminescence in the aggregated state, are emerging as a crucial choice for energy acceptors in confined nanospaces [26,27]. Despite this advancement, the random arrangement of CRET donors and CRET acceptors within confined nanospaces might result in uncontrollable variations in donor–acceptor distances, potentially diminishing overall CRET efficiency.…”