Donor-Acceptor Typed AIE Luminogens with Near-infrared Emission for Super-resolution Imaging

Aggregation-induced emission(AIE) luminogens(AIEgens) with high brightness in aggregates exhibit great potentials in biological imaging, but these AIEgens are seldom applied in super-resolution biological imaging, especially in the imaging by using the structural illumination microscope(SIM). Based on this consideration, we synthesized the donor-acceptor typed AIEgen of DTPA-BTN, which not only owns high brightness in the near-infrared(NIR) emission region from 600 nm to 1000 nm(photoluminescence quantum yield, PLQYs=11.35%), but also displays excellent photo-stability. In addition, AIE nanoparticles based on 4,7-ditriphenylamine-1,2,5]-thiadiazolo3,4-c]pyridine(DTPA-BTN) were also prepared with highly emissive features and excellent biocompatibility. Finally, the developed DTPA-BTN-based AIE nanoparticles were applied in the super-resolution cellular imaging via SIM, where much smaller full width at half-maximum values and high signal to noise ratios were obtained, indicating the superior imaging resolution. The results here imply that highly emissive AIEgens or AIE nanoparticles can be promising imaging agents for super-resolution imaging via SIM.