Issue 3, 2017

AIE-active theranostic system: selective staining and killing of cancer cells

Abstract

Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide. With the advantages of low cost, high sensitivity and ease of accessibility, fluorescence imaging has been widely used for cancer detection in the scientific field. Aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) are a class of synthesized fluorescent probes with high brightness and photostability in the aggregate state. Herein, a new positively-charged AIEgen, abbreviated as TPE-IQ-2O, is designed and characterized. TPE-IQ-2O not only can distinguish cancer cells from normal cells with high contrast with the aid of the difference in mitochondrial membrane potential as well as the quantity of mitochondria, but it also works as a promising photosensitizer to kill cancer cells through generation of reactive oxygen species upon white light irradiation, thus making it a promising AIE theranostic system.

Graphical abstract: AIE-active theranostic system: selective staining and killing of cancer cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
09 Nov. 2016
Accepted
13 Dec. 2016
First published
13 Dec. 2016
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2017,8, 1822-1830

AIE-active theranostic system: selective staining and killing of cancer cells

C. Gui, E. Zhao, R. T. K. Kwok, A. C. S. Leung, J. W. Y. Lam, M. Jiang, H. Deng, Y. Cai, W. Zhang, H. Su and B. Z. Tang, Chem. Sci., 2017, 8, 1822 DOI: 10.1039/C6SC04947H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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