Intrinsic Burst-Blinking Nanographenes for Super-Resolution Bioimaging

Abstract

Single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) is a powerful technique to achieve super-resolution imaging beyond the diffraction limit. Although various types of blinking fluorophores are currently considered for SMLM, intrinsic blinking fluorophores remain rare at the single-molecule level. Here, we report the synthesis of nanographene-based intrinsic burst-blinking fluorophores for highly versatile SMLM. We image amyloid fibrils in air and in various pH solutions without any additive and lysosome dynamics in live mammalian cells under physiological conditions. In addition, the single-molecule labeling of nascent proteins in primary sensory neurons was achieved with azidefunctionalized nanographenes via click chemistry. SMLM imaging reveals higher local translation at axonal branching with unprecedented detail, while the size of translation foci remained similar throughout the entire network. These various results demonstrate the potential of nanographene-based fluorophores to drastically expand the applicability of super-resolution imaging.

Multi-heteroatom doped nanographenes: enhancing photosensitization capacity by forming an electron donor–acceptor architecture

“…Synthetic nanographenes (NGs), as large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) or polycyclic conjugated hydrocarbons (PCHs) with a nanoscale size, have fascinated synthetic chemists in recent decades. 1 Due to their aesthetic structures and intriguing physicochemical properties, so far, a variety of planar and non-planar NGs have been developed by bottom-up strategies and widely applied in various branches of science, such as optoelectronic devices, 2 biological probes, 3 supramolecular systems, 4 and so on. As a benchmark for NGs, the hexa- peri -hexabenzocoronene (HBC), a D 6h −symmetric planar π scaffold with 42 sp 2 carbon atoms, has garnered significant attention in terms of novel nanocarbon materials, 2 a ,5 as well as a building block for large-size NGs with different topological structures.…”