Ca²⁺ Induced Crosslinking of AIE‐Active Polyarylene Ether Nitrile into Fluorescent Polymeric Nanoparticles for Cellular Bioimaging

Abstract

Biocompatible fluorescent polymeric nanoparticles (FPNs) are promising luminescent probes in cellular bioimaging, while the fabrication of high-quantum-yield FPN using nonconjugated heterochain polymers derived from step-growth polymerization is still in its infancy. Herein, the nonconjugated polyarylene ether nitrile (PEN) is endowed with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) feature by incorporation of an AIEgen named of 1,2-di(4-hydroxyphenyl)-1,2-diphenylethene into macromolecular backbone. Furthermore, the AIE-active PEN is crosslinked into water soluble fluorescent nanospheres showing good biocompatibility and strong emission ≈480 nm with a quantum yield of 21% in the presence of Ca , which allows the successful bioimaging of cancer cells. Due to the facile fabrication of FPNs and their effective bioimaging performance, the current work will open the way for the biomedical applications of various high performance polyarylene ethers.

Recent Advances in AIEgens for Metal Ion Biosensing and Bioimaging

“…AIEgens are also involved in the structures of polymers for the development of ion sensors. Liu et al synthesized a copolymer PEN-TPE/PPL (PEN: polyarylene ether nitrile; TPE: tetraphenylethene; PPL: phenolphthalin) through the copolymerization of TPE-2OH, 2, 6-dichlorobenzonitile (DCBN) and phenolphthalein (PPL) ( Figure 3a) [45]. With the presence of carboxyl group, PEN-TPE/PPL showed coordination towards metal ions, including Cu 2+ , Pb 2+ , Zn 2+ , and Ca 2+ .…”

“…These nanospheres could penetrate EMT-6 cells and concentrate in cytoplasm. [45]. (b,c) A molecular probe (CaP1) with Ca 2+ -responsive signal for analyzing Ca 2+ in the root cells of Arabidopsis thaliana [46] (Reproduced with permission from [45,46]).…”

“…[45]. (b,c) A molecular probe (CaP1) with Ca 2+ -responsive signal for analyzing Ca 2+ in the root cells of Arabidopsis thaliana [46] (Reproduced with permission from [45,46]). With water solubility and coordinating ability towards Ca 2+ , bidentate pyridine carboxylate was anchored on TPE for the design of Ca 2+ sensor [44].…”

“…(b,c) A molecular probe (CaP1) with Ca 2+ -responsive signal for analyzing Ca 2+ in the root cells of Arabidopsis thaliana [46] (Reproduced with permission from [45,46]). [45]. (b,c) A molecular probe (CaP1) with Ca 2+ -responsive signal for analyzing Ca 2+ in the root cells of Arabidopsis thaliana [46] (Reproduced with permission from [45,46]).…”

Scalable Fabrication of Metallopolymeric Superstructures for Highly Efficient Removal of Methylene Blue

“…The rigid backbone structure renders the intrinsic aggregation tendency of PEN macromolecular chains, which can be further enhanced by the strong intramolecular interaction derived from presence of pendent polar groups. Recently, we have synthesized a range of amphiphilic block copolymer by manipulation of backbone structure as well as pendent groups of conventional PEN, leading to fabrication of different polymeric superstructures via microemulsion self-assembly for organic dyes removal, metal ions detection, as well as multimodal in vitro bio-imaging [37,38]. However, the fabrication of PEN superstructures in these previously published works is the exquisite self-assembly in immiscible microemulsion system, which is still difficult to scale up for industrial application.…”