Pyrene-Based AIE Active Materials for Bioimaging and Theranostics Applications

Abstract

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) is a unique research topic and property that can lead to a wide range of applications, including cellular imaging, theranostics, analyte quantitation and the specific detection of biologically important species. Towards the development of the AIE-active materials, many aromatic moieties composed of tetraphenylethylene, anthracene, pyrene, etc., have been developed. Among these aromatic moieties, pyrene is an aromatic hydrocarbon with a polycyclic flat structure containing four fused benzene rings to provide an unusual electron delocalization feature that is important in the AIE property. Numerous pyrene-based AIE-active materials have been reported with the AIE property towards sensing, imaging and theranostics applications. Most importantly, these AIE-active pyrene moieties exist as small molecules, Schiff bases, polymers, supramolecules, metal-organic frameworks, etc. This comprehensive review outlines utilizations of AIE-active pyrene-based materials on the imaging and theranostics studies. Moreover, the design and synthesis of these pyrene-based molecules are delivered with discussions on their future scopes.

Review on Carbon Dot-Based Fluorescent Detection of Biothiols

“…Detection and quantification of biologically important species are becoming important for treating infections and diseases existing in living systems [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Therefore, bioimaging of these affected tissues or cells was proposed by using fluorescent organic nanoparticles, inorganic nanostructures, hybrid nanosystems, and composites with authenticated evidence [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Among these biologically important species, non-protein biothiols, such as cysteine (Cys; normal blood plasma concentration is between 135 to 300 µM), homocysteine (Hcy; normal blood plasma concentration is between 5 to 15 µM), and glutathione (GSH normal blood plasma concentration is between 1 to 6 µM), play a vital role in many pathological process, clinical disorders, and diseases [ 14 , 15 , 16 ].…”

Tuning Photophysical Properties via Positional Isomerization of the Pyridine Ring in Donor–Acceptor-Structured Aggregation-Induced Emission Luminogens Based on Phenylmethylene Pyridineacetonitrile Derivatives

“…Another strategy is the systematic structural tuning of the present AIEgens to optimize the solid-state luminescent properties. For organic fluorophores that are facilely modified, the substitution position effect of the functional groups or building blocks significantly affects the conjugation, intramolecular charge distribution, and transfer, and subsequently the photophysical properties [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ]. Though some research has been performed that has provided the optimized substitution manner of the AIEgens, which led to the enhanced performance of the solid photoelectronic devices [ 38 , 39 , 40 ], more detailed investigations are still in demand to reveal and to further manipulate the detailed structure¬–property relationship.…”

Functional α-Cyanostilbenes: Sensing to Imaging

“…Many organic fluorophores have thus been designed based on these structural scaffolds. Examples include derivatives based on tetraphenylethenes 2 , triphenylethene 3 , distyrylanthracene 4 , distyrylbenzene 5,6 , Perylenes, Pyrene 7 , and naphthalene 8 and have been widely used in various fields, such as chemical sensing, bioimaging, and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).…”