Supramolecular Assemblies Based On Amphiphilic Boron-dipyrromethene Dyes And Their Applications In Bioimaging

In recent years, because of their unique properties not attainable from monomers,supramolecular functional dyes have attracted much attention among reseachers. Dueto their excellent characteristics, boron dipyrromethenes (BODIPYs) have beenwidely used in biological imaging, ion probe and photoelectrical materials. However,aggregation behavior study of the molecules in aqueous solution is rather limited.Consequently, it is very important to study their aggregation behaviors in water.Herein, we designed and synthesized a series of amphiphilic BODIPY derivatives.Their aggregation behaviors were also studied with the help of optical analysis. Inaqueous solutions, dye1self-assemblies exhibit photophysical properties ofJ-aggregation. Supramolecular BODIPY vesicles were first frabricated and were fullycharacterized by transmission electron microscope (TEM), atomic force microscopy(AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and confocal laser scanningmicroscopy (CLSM), which confirmed the hollow structure of the vesicles. The ?-?packing mode is also estimated under exciton coupling mechanism.Due to the strong ?-? conjugation effect, vesicles co-self-assembled by dyes1and2are non-fluorecent. In vitro study proved that the vesicles can be readilyinternerlized through endocytosis pathway, dissociated and localized in theendoplasmic reticulum specifically, realizing self-calibraion dual-color fluorescenceimaging.