Crucho, Carina IC;
Avo, Joao;
Diniz, Ana M;
Pinto, Sandra N;
Barbosa, Jose;
Smith, Poppy O;
Berberan-Santos, Mario Nuno;
... Dias, Fernando B; + view all
(2020)
TADF Dye-Loaded Nanoparticles for Fluorescence Live-Cell Imaging.
Frontiers in Chemistry
, 8
, Article 404. 10.3389/fchem.2020.00404.
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Abstract
Thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) molecules offer nowadays a powerful tool in the development of novel organic light emitting diodes due to their capability of harvesting energy from non-emissive triplet states without using heavy-metal complexes. TADF emitters have very small energy difference between the singlet and triplet excited states, which makes thermally activated reverse intersystem crossing from the triplet states back to the singlet manifold viable. This mechanism generates a long-lived delayed fluorescence component which can be explored in the sensing of oxygen concentration, local temperature, or used in time-gated optical cell-imaging, to suppress interference from autofluorescence and scattering. Despite this strong potential, until recently the application of TADF outside lighting devices has been hindered due to the low biocompatibility, low aqueous solubility and poor performance in polar media shown by the vast majority of TADF emitters. To achieve TADF luminescence in biological media, careful selection or design of emitters is required. Unfortunately, most TADF molecules are not emissive in polar media, thus complexation with biomolecules or the formation of emissive aggregate states is required, in order to retain the delayed fluorescence that is characteristic of these compounds. Herein, we demonstrate a facile method with great generalization potential that maintains the photophysical properties of solvated dyes by combining luminescent molecules with polymeric nanoparticles. Using an established swelling procedure, two known TADF emitters are loaded onto polystyrene nanoparticles to prepare TADF emitting nanomaterials able to be used in live-cell imaging. The obtained particles were characterized by optical spectroscopy and exhibited the desired TADF emission in aqueous media, due to the polymeric matrix shielding the dye from solvent polarity effects. The prepared nanoparticles were incubated with live human cancer cells and showed very low cytotoxicity and good cellular uptake, thus making fluorescence microscopy imaging possible at low dye concentrations.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | TADF Dye-Loaded Nanoparticles for Fluorescence Live-Cell Imaging |
| Location: | Switzerland |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fchem.2020.00404 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2020.00404 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2020 Crucho, Avó, Diniz, Pinto, Barbosa, Smith, Berberan-Santos, Pålsson and Dias. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| Keywords: | TADF, dye-loaded nanoparticles, luminescent probes, optical imaging, fluorescence imaging, fluorescence microscopy |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187151 |
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