Star-shaped conjugated oligoelectrolyte for bioimaging in living cells

A new star-shaped oligoelectrolyte (TEFCOONa) with triphenylamine as the core, acetylene as linkage and anionic fluorenes as arms was obtained and used for direct imaging in living PANC-1 cells. Because of the hydrophobic conjugated groups of the oligoelectrolyte, TEFCOONa can form nanospheres with an average diameter of ∼75 nm in 10 mmol/L PBS. These nanospheres possess a relatively high absolute quantum yield (16.5% in PBS), low cytotoxicity and can penetrate into the nucleus through the cytoplasm, which is essential for living cellular imaging. Collectively, these results validate our rational design of conjugated oligoelectrolyte and even hyper branched polymers-copolyelectrolyte as effective nanovectors for bioimaging and other clinical applications.