Luminescence-Tunable Polynorbornenes for Simultaneous Multicolor Imaging in Subcellular Organelles

Abstract

Through modular ROMP (ring-opening metathesis polymerization), biofunctional polynorbornenes are designed and fabricated from panchromatic fluorophores, bioactive peptides, and polyethylene glycol solubilizer for organelle-specific multicolor imaging. Attributed to the free permutation and combination of highly fluorescent red rhodamine B, green dichlorofluorescein and blue 9,10-diphenylanthracene fluorophores as well as signaling peptide sequences of F rFK and TAT, we successfully realize simultaneous multicolor imaging toward lysosomes and mitochondria in living cells first utilizing polymeric scaffolds. If more biofunctions could be incorporated, modularly designed copolymer would provide a promising opportunity to facilitate multitasking application to monitoring intracellular alterations and elucidating complex biological processes.

Red Light-Emitting Water-Soluble Luminescent Iridium-Containing Polynorbornenes: Synthesis, Characterization and Oxygen Sensing Properties in Biological Tissues In Vivo

“…The preparation and properties of representative examples of such polymers are described in references [37,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]. The ROMP polymers containing organic dies and anticancer drugs were successfully used as efficient bioimaging and drug-delivery agents [37,55,57,59,62]. The presence of luminescent fragments in macromolecules allowed the monitoring of drug delivery to the target tumor tissue and the evaluation of the efficacy of treatment.…”

Supramolecular behaviour and fluorescence of rhodamine-functionalised ROMP polymers

“…The polymerisation characteristics of the exo-norbornene-PEG monomer 5 have been determined previously 24,31 and so we focused on investigating the homopolymerisation of exo-norbornene-RhB monomer exo-10. The Grubbs G3 initiator was chosen as this has been shown to possess excellent activity even with complex pendant groups.…”

“…The rhodamine group of dyes are second only to the xanthene fluorescein group with respect to polymer dye conjugates used for labelling 2 and yet there are few ROMP polymer conjugate examples in the literature. 20,25,[27][28][29][30][31][32] Our ROMP polymer shows robust self-assembly into well-defined nanoparticles, which can interact both supramolecularly and photophysically with molecular dyes, while showing no interactions with DNA which could lead to toxicity. Such nanoparticles which display high fluorescence and minimal interactions with biomolecules could be useful in monitoring drugdelivery processes at the cellular level.…”

Supramolecular Behaviour and Fluorescence of Rhodamine-Functionalised ROMP Polymer

“…The polymerisation characteristics of the exo-norbornene-PEG monomer 5 have been determined previously 24,31 and so we focused on investigating the homopolymerisation of exo-norbornene-RhB monomer exo-10. The Grubbs G3 initiator was chosen as this has been shown to possess excellent activity even with complex pendant groups.…”

“…The rhodamine group of dyes are second only to the xanthene fluorescein group with respect to polymer dye conjugates used for labelling 2 and yet there are few ROMP polymer conjugate examples in the literature. 20,25,[27][28][29][30][31][32] Our ROMP polymer shows robust self-assembly into well-defined nanoparticles, which can interact both supramolecularly and photophysically with molecular dyes, while showing no interactions with DNA which could lead to toxicity. Such nanoparticles which display high fluorescence and minimal interactions with biomolecules could be useful in monitoring drug-delivery processes at the cellular level.…”