journal article·2022-01-25

A Class of Biocompatible Dye–Protein Complex Optical Nanoprobes

Xindong Wang, Xinyu Wang, Bo Qu, Nuernisha Alifu, Ji Qi, Ruiyuan Liu, Qinrui Fu, Ruifang Shen, Qi Xia, Lijun Wu, Bing Sun, Jibin Song, Youping Lin, Xin Huang, Anjun Qin, Jun Qian, Ben Zhong Tang, Guanying Chen

ACS Nano· Volume 16· Issue 1
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Abstract

Molecular organic dyes are classic fluorescent nanoprobes finding tremendous uses in biological and life sciences. Yet, they suffer from low brightness, poor photostability, and lack of functional groups for bioconjugation. Here, we describe a class of biocompatible dye–protein optical nanoprobes, which show long-time photostability, superbrightness, and enriched functional groups. These nanoprobes utilize apoferritin (an intracellular protein for iron stores and release) to encase appropriate molecular organic dyes to produce on-demand fluorescence in aqueous solution. A pH-driven dissociation–reconstitution process of apoferritin subunits allows substantial incorporation of hydrophilic (aggregation caused quenching, ACQ) or hydrophobic (aggregation induced enhancement, AIE) dye molecules into the protein nanocavity (8 nm), producing monodispersed dye–apoferritin nanoparticles (apo-dye-NPs, ∼12 nm). As compared with single dye monomer, single apo-dye-NPs possess hundreds of times larger molar extinction coefficient and 2 orders of magnitude higher absolute luminescence quantum yield (up to 45-fold), multiplying fluorescence brightness up to 2778-fold. We show that varying the type of incorporated dyes entails a precise control over nanoprobe emission profile tunable in a broad spectral range of 370–1300 nm. Mechanical investigations indicate that the diversified microstructures of nanocavity inner surface are able to conform ACQ dyes at reasonable space interval while providing protein-guided-stacking for AIE dyes, thus enhancing fluorescence quantum yield through confining intermolecular quenching and intramolecular rotation. Moreover, apo-dye-NPs are able to emit stable fluorescence (over 13 min) without quenching in confocal imaging of HepG2 cancer cell under ultrahigh laser irradiance (1.3 × 106 W/cm2). These superb properties make them suitable, as demonstrated in this work, for long-term super-resolved structured illumination microscopic cell imaging (spatial resolution, 117 nm) over 48 h, near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence angiography imaging of whole-body blood vessels (spatial resolution, 380 μm), and NIR photoacoustic imaging of liver in vivo.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Advanced biosensing and bioanalysis techniques · Quantum Dots Synthesis And Properties · Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering & Key Laboratory of Micro-systems and Micro-structures, Ministry of Education, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150001 Harbin, P. R. China

Life Science and Biotechnology Research Center, School of Life Science, Northeast Agricultural University, 150030 Harbin, P. R. China

State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentations, Centre for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, College of Optical Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, 310058 Hangzhou, P. R. China

Department of Chemistry, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, and SCUT-HKUST Joint Research Laboratory, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong 999077, P. R. China

Shenzhen Institute of Aggregate Science and Technology, School of Science & Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 518172 Guangdong, P. R. China

School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, 510515 Guangzhou, P. R. China

MOE Key Laboratory for Analytical Science of Food Safety and Biology, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, P. R. China

Laboratory for Space Environment and Physical Sciences, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150001 Harbin, P. R. China

School of Science, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, P. R. China

State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Luminescence from Molecular Aggregates, Center for Aggregation-Induced Emission, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, P. R. China

Funding

State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment · Central University Basic Research Fund of China · Harbin Institute of Technology · National Natural Science Foundation of China · State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics

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