Photostable fluorescent organic dots with aggregation-induced emission (AIE dots) for noninvasive long-term cell tracing.

Photostable fluorescent organic dots with aggregation-induced emission (AIE dots) for noninvasive long-term cell tracing.

Scientific reports (2013-01-30)

Kai Li, Wei Qin, Dan Ding, Nikodem Tomczak, Junlong Geng, Rongrong Liu, Jianzhao Liu, Xinhai Zhang, Hongwei Liu, Bin Liu, Ben Zhong Tang

PMID23359649

ABSTRACT

Long-term noninvasive cell tracing by fluorescent probes is of great importance to life science and biomedical engineering. For example, understanding genesis, development, invasion and metastasis of cancerous cells and monitoring tissue regeneration after stem cell transplantation require continual tracing of the biological processes by cytocompatible fluorescent probes over a long period of time. In this work, we successfully developed organic far-red/near-infrared dots with aggregation-induced emission (AIE dots) and demonstrated their utilities as long-term cell trackers. The high emission efficiency, large absorptivity, excellent biocompatibility, and strong photobleaching resistance of the AIE dots functionalized by cell penetrating peptides derived from transactivator of transcription proteins ensured outstanding long-term noninvasive in vitro and in vivo cell tracing. The organic AIE dots outperform their counterparts of inorganic quantum dots, opening a new avenue in the development of fluorescent probes for following biological processes such as carcinogenesis.

MATERIALS

Product Number

Brand

Product Description

SCT012M

Sigma-Aldrich

LuminiCell Tracker 540- Vascular Labeling Kit, Biocompatible organic fluorescent nanoparticles (AIEDots) that can be used to fluorescently tag vasculature in living tissues and animals for studies of inflammation and vascular leakage.

SCT013

Sigma-Aldrich

LuminiCell Tracker 670- Vascular Labeling Kit, Biocompatible organic fluorescent nanoparticles (AIEDots) that can be used to fluorescently tag vasculature in living tissues and animals for studies of inflammation and vascular leakage.

SCT010M

Sigma-Aldrich

LuminiCell Tracker 540- Cell Labeling Kit, Biocompatible organic fluorescent nanoparticles (AIEDots) that can be used to label cells for long term cell tracking and cell tracing in vitro and in vivo experiments.

SCT011

Sigma-Aldrich

LuminiCell Tracker 670- Cell Labeling Kit, Biocompatible organic fluorescent nanoparticles (AIEDots) that can be used to label cells for long term cell tracking and cell tracing in vitro and in vivo experiments.