PEGylated AIEgens for dual sensing of ATP and H < sub > 2 < /sub > S and cancer cells photodynamic therapy

Talanta. 2024 Feb 2;271:125739. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2024.125739. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTFluorescent sensors have been widely applied for biosensing, but probes for both multiple analytes sensing and photodynamic therapy (PDT) effect are less reported. In this article, we reported three AIE-based probes anchored with different mass-weight polyethylene glycol (PEG) tails, i.e., TPE-PEG160, TPE-PEG350, and TPE-PEG750, for both adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) detection and also cancer cells photodynamic therapy. TPE-PEGns (n = 160, 350 and 750) contain the tetraphenylethylene-based fluorophore core, the pyridinium and amide anion binding sites, the H2S cleavable disulfide bond, and the hydrophilic PEG chain. They exhibit a good amphiphilic property and can self-assemble nona-aggregation with a moderated red emission in an aqueous solution. Importantly, the size of aggregation, photophysical property, sensing ability and photosensitivity of these amphiphilic probes can be controlled by tuning the PEG chain length. Moreover, the selected probe TPE-PEG160 has been successfully used to detect environmental H2S and image ATP levels in living cells, and TPE-PEG750 has been used for photodynamic therapy of tumor cells under light irradiation.PMID:38309115 | DOI:10.1016/j.talanta.2024.125739
Source: Talanta - Category: Chemistry Authors: Source Type: research