Themed collection Probes for in vitro and in vivo fluorescence imaging

This review summarizes the latest developments and addresses current applications and future perspectives of carbon-based hybrid nanogels in the biomedical field.

Peptide-based nanoprobes can improve the diagnosis, staging, treatment, management, and prognosis of numerous diseases by interfacing with and/or sensing of disease-relevant biomolecules.

Peptide– and protein–nanoparticle conjugates have emerged as powerful tools for biomedical applications, enabling the treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of disease.

Conventional optical nanoprobes rely on absolute intensity-dependent signal readout, which can often cause erroneous sensing and imaging results owing to the existence of analyte-independent confounding factors. Ratiometric signal processing provides built-in self-calibration for signal correction, enabling more accurate molecular detection and imaging.

This article reviews recent smart constructions and applications of optical nano-biosensing interfaces assisted by a nucleic acid amplification strategy.

Engineering functional inorganic–organic hybrid vectors for siRNA delivery systems as a promising approach to overcome many physiological and biological obstacles, which greatly paves the way for a successful, safe and efficient platform in clinical applications.

A review of progress, challenges, and future prospects in developing transition metal catalysts for intracellular organic synthesis.

Our review presents the recent progress on far-red fluorescent probes of canonical and non-canonical nucleic acid (NA) structures, critically discusses the design principles, applications, limitations and outline the future prospects of developing newer probes with target-specificity for different NA structures.

Calcium-based biomaterials with good biosafety and bio-absorbability are promising for biomedical applications such as diagnosis, treatment, and theranostics.

This review identifies and discusses fluorescent sensors that are capable of simultaneously reporting on the presence of two analytes for biological application.

A detailed overview of the development of Ru(II) polypyridyl complexes as diagnostic and therapeutic agents in vitro and in vivo.

Cyclodextrins (CDs) are naturally occurring cyclic oligosaccharides that show favourable properties for probe design and development.

This review provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamental principles, analysis techniques, and application fields of hybridization chain reaction and its development status.

In this tutorial review, we summarize the recent progress in SERS-based biological and biomedical applications – from cells to clinics.

This review summarizes the recent progress of endogenous enzyme-responsive nanomaterials based on different building blocks such as polymers, liposomes, small organic molecules, or inorganic/organic hybrid materials for theranostics.

Recent advances in the chemical design and synthesis of fluorophores in the second near-infrared biological window (NIR-II) for multimodal imaging and theranostics are summarized and highlighted in this review article.

A ‘how-to’ guide for designing chemical imaging experiments using antibodies and immunohistochemistry.

The development of highly selective fluorophores for tau protein aggregates, a key feature of Alzheimer's disease, is highlighted.

This tutorial review covers recent advances in the design, synthesis and application of quinone-based fluorescent agents for visualizing specific processes in multiple biological systems, from cells to tissues and complex organisms in vivo.

This Tutorial Review will describe various fluorogenic reaction-based prodrug strategies used for targeted theranostic drug delivery.

Fluorescent chemosensors for ions and neutral analytes have been widely applied in many diverse fields such as biology, physiology, pharmacology, and environmental sciences.

This tutorial review highlights the development of multiplexed photoluminescent sensors which can simultaneously detect multiple and diverse biomarkers that exist in a homogenous solution or a single cell, accelerating the progress towards precise disease diagnostics.

Enhancing existing porphyrin functionality and introducing new capabilities via supramolecular chemistry.

This review provides new insights into supramolecular catalysis and dynamic regulation of molecular assemblies for biomedical applications.

A new concept of motion-induced change in emission (MICE) in a single molecule for developing fluorescent probes is presented and summarized.

In this tutorial review, the techniques involved in the detection of pathogenic bacteria are described.