Highly selective cysteine detection and bioimaging in zebrafish through emission color change of water-soluble conjugated polymer-based assay complex
- Authors
- Kwon, N.Y., Kim, D., Jang, G., Lee, J.H., So, J.H., Kim, C.H., Kim, T.H., and Lee, T.S.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-120203-1
- Date
- 2012
- Source
- ACS applied materials & interfaces 4(3): 1429-1433 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- So, Ju-Hoon
- Keywords
- none
- MeSH Terms
-
- Color
- Biological Assay/methods*
- Zebrafish/metabolism*
- Microscopy, Phase-Contrast
- Polymerization
- Polymers/chemistry*
- Solubility
- Cysteine/metabolism*
- Spectrometry, Fluorescence
- Imaging, Three-Dimensional/methods*
- Water/chemistry*
- Animals
- PubMed
- 22296511 Full text @ ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces
A new concept for rapid, label-free cysteine sensing method is proposed via possible naked eye-detection of red-to-blue emission color change. Intermolecular exciton migration in conjugated polyelectrolyte-based assay complex is adopted to enhance selectivity and sensitivity for cysteine sensing by formation and dissociation of polymer-Hg2+-thymine assay complex in the absence and presence of cysteine, respectively. The assay complex shows red emission due to cooperative aggregation of conjugated polyelectrolyte, thymine, and Hg2+. Upon exposure to cysteine, the assay complex dissociates into individual molecules showing transparent, blue-emitting solution, because cysteine extracts Hg2+ from the assay complex via more favorable binding between cysteine and Hg2+.