• DOI:10.1021/acssensors.9b00131
• Corpus ID: 75139315

Highly Stable and Luminescent Oxygen Nanosensor Based on Ruthenium-Containing Metallopolymer for Real-Time Imaging of Intracellular Oxygenation.

@article{Zhou2019HighlySA,
  title={Highly Stable and Luminescent Oxygen Nanosensor Based on Ruthenium-Containing Metallopolymer for Real-Time Imaging of Intracellular Oxygenation.},
  author={Chao Zhou and Wu-Xing Zhao and Fang-tian You and Zhaoxin Geng and Hong‐shang Peng},
  journal={ACS sensors},
  year={2019},
  volume={4 4},
  pages={
          984-991
        }
}

• Chao Zhou, Wu-Xing Zhao, +2 authors Hong‐shang Peng
• Published 12 March 2019
• Chemistry, Materials Science
• ACS sensors

Metal complex-based luminescent oxygen nanosensors have been intensively studied for biomedical applications. In terms of monitoring dynamics of intracellular oxygen, however, high-quality nanosensors are still badly needed, because of stringent requirements on stability, biocompatibility and luminescence intensity, aside from oxygen sensitivity. In this paper, we reported a type of highly luminescent and stable oxygen nanosensors prepared from metallopolymer. First, a novel ruthenium(II)-containing metallopolymer was synthesized by chelating the oxygen probe [Ru(bpy)3]2+ with a bipyridine-branched hydrophobic copolymer, which was then doped into polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) by a reprecipitation method, followed by further conjugation to selectively target mitochondria (Mito-NPs). The resultant Mtio-NPs possessed a small hydrodynamic size of ∼85 nm, good biocompatibility and high stability resulting from PEGylation and stable nature of Ru-complex. Because the complexed [Ru(bpy)3]2+ homogeneously resided on particle surface, Mito-NPs exhibited strong luminescence at 608 nm that was free of aggregation-caused-quenching, the utmost oxygen sensitivity of free [Ru(bpy)3]2+ probe ( Q = 75%), and linear Stern-Volmer oxygen luminescence quenching plots. Taking advantage of the mitochondria-specific nanosensors, intracellular oxygenation and deoxygenation processes were real-time monitored for 10 min by confocal luminescence imaging, visualized by the gradual weakening (by more than 90%) and enhancing (by 50%) of the red emission, respectively.