A dual-emission Förster resonance energy transfer nanoprobe for sensing/imaging pH changes in the biological environment.

Chiu, Ya-Ling; Chen, Show-An; Chen, Jean-Hong; Chen, Ko-Jie; Chen, Hsin-Lung; Sung, Hsing-Wen · ACS Nano · 2010

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

A dual-emission nanoprobe that can sense changes in the environmental pH is designed based on the concept of pH-responsive Förster resonance energy transfer induced by the conformational transition of an associating polyelectrolyte, N-palmitoyl chitosan, bearing a donor (Cy3) or an acceptor (Cy5) moiety. We demonstrate that the developed pH-responsive nanoprobe can be used to ratiometrically image and thus discriminate the pH changes in the biological environment at different length scales.

Medical subject headings