As a natural protein fiber, silk has excellent physical properties, such as flexibility, smoothness, good gloss, light weight, and high mechanical strength. It has a long history of production and processing in the textile industry. In recent years, with in-depth research on natural polymer materials, silk’s excellent biocompatibility and controllability have made it a structural material. Its applications in the biomedical field and wearable field have become increasingly prominent, and related research results continue to emerge. .
Recently, Tang Benzhong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led a team to obtain conjugated products through bioconjugation methods to functionalize silk, thus achieving full-color fluorescence and long-term biological imaging.
Design and synthesize AIEgens
Aggregation-inducing luminogens (AIEgens) Since it emits intense light due to the restriction of molecular motion in the solid state, it is suitable for manufacturing solid-state light-emitting devices such as diodes. The research team first synthesized five AIE molecules with propyl groups (AIE-pyo), whose emission colors can cover the entire visible light region (blue, green, yellow, orange and red).
Bioconjugation experiment
Immerse the silk in the AIE-pyo solution and leave it at room temperature overnight , prepared AIEgen-silk silk threads and fabrics whose fluorescence uniformly covers the entire visible light region.
Fluorescent white silk was prepared through hydrogen bond interaction, its stability was evaluated, and compared with AIEgen-silk. The results showed that blue AIEgen-silk (AIE-silk-b) and red AIEgen-silk (AIE-silk-r) fabrics still showed strong radiation after ultrasonic cleaning with soapy water for 10 times. The fluorescein-modified silk exhibits yellow fluorescence due to partial separation. Obviously, the retention rate of AIEgens on silk fabrics is much higher than that of fluorescein, and it has more advantages in preparing high-brightness and high-stability fluorescent silks. It has huge application potential in flexible displays and wearable electronic devices.
In addition, the researchers further evaluated the application prospects of functionalized silk in long-term cell tracking and deep tissue imaging, proving the application of the bioconjugate in silk bioscaffolds possibility.
In summary, the researchers achieved the functionalization of silk with AIEgens through metal-free click bioconjugation. Through reasonable molecular design, chemically coupled fluorescent filaments have good stability and achieve full-color emission. In addition, functionalized silk was successfully used for real-time and long-term cell tracking, showing great potential in deep tissue imaging and biological scaffold monitoring.
The research content was published in the latest issue of “Angew” under the title “Functionalization of Silk by AIEgens through Facile Bioconjugation: Full-Color Fluorescence and Long-Term Bioimaging”. </p
