Issue 18, 2023

Monitoring amyloid aggregation via a twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT)-based fluorescent sensor array

Abstract

Imaging amyloid-beta (Aβ) aggregation is critical for understanding the pathology and aiding the pre-symptomatic intervention of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Amyloid aggregation consists of multiple phases with increasing viscosities and demands probes with broad dynamic ranges and gradient sensitivities for continuous monitoring. Yet, existing probes designed based on the twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) mechanism mainly focused on donor engineering, limiting the sensitivities and/or dynamic ranges of these fluorophores to a narrow window. Herein, using quantum chemical calculations, we investigated multiple factors affecting the TICT process of fluorophores. It includes the conjugation length, the net charge of the fluorophore scaffold, the donor strength, and the geometric pre-twisting. We have established an integrative framework for tuning TICT tendencies. Based on this framework, a platter of hemicyanines with varied sensitivities and dynamic ranges is synthesized, forming a sensor array and enabling the observation of various stages of Aβ aggregations. This approach will significantly facilitate the development of TICT-based fluorescent probes with tailored environmental sensitivities for numerous applications.

Graphical abstract: Monitoring amyloid aggregation via a twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT)-based fluorescent sensor array

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
06 12月 2022
Accepted
05 4月 2023
First published
05 4月 2023
This article is Open Access

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

Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 4786-4795

Monitoring amyloid aggregation via a twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT)-based fluorescent sensor array

C. Wang, W. Jiang, D. Tan, L. Huang, J. Li, Q. Qiao, P. Yadav, X. Liu and Z. Xu, Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 4786 DOI: 10.1039/D2SC06710B

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements