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New Journal of Chemistry
Page 4 of 6
DOI: 10.1039/C7NJ02416A
COMMUNICATION
Journal Name
DNDT shows excellent fluorescence performances and low
cytotoxities, this carbon material was readily internalized by
HepG2 cells, mainly centralized in nucleus with clear visibility.
And also, the developed strategy for combining low-toxic GO
and fluorescent DNDT presented a new protocol for designing
some new biocompatible probes. However, there still needs
some approaches to improve the specificity of GO-KH550-
DNDT towards nucleus-staining. Afterwards, we hope to
combine GO with cationic dyes, which can establish a strong
electrostatic attraction with nucleus, to enhance the specificity.
Fig. 6 Fluorescence images of HepG2 cells stained with GO-KH550-DNDT for 30
min under different magnification (a, b, c presence of 100 μg/mL GO-KH550-
DNDT); Excitation wavelength: 330-400 nm.
To conform whether GO-KH550-DNDT entered into the
nucleus, TPPA–DBO, which was a typical fluorescent dye for
nuclear staining synthesized by our group,4a was employed as
a criteria to stain the cell nucleus. From Fig. 7, we can see that
the blue fluorescence from GO-KH550-DNDT (excited at 364-
410 nm) was mainly accumulated in nucleus (Fig. 7a). TPPA-
DBO exhibited a green fluorescence (excited at 500-540 nm)
and specifically located in nucleus (Fig. 7b). The counterstain
images picked up from a confocal microscope has a prominent
overlap, confirming that GO-KH550-DNDT can easily penetrate
into the cells and mainly enriched into nucleus, this result was
also in accordance with the Fluorescent microscope images.
Notes and references
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Fig. 7 Confocal fluorescent images of GO-KH550-DNDT (blue light, a) nucleus-
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,
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As nuclei are filled with negatively charged DNA, some of
nucleus-imaging reagents bear positive charges to form
electrostatic forces with DNA.20a To investigagte the possible
mechanism of GO-KH550-DNDT’s aggregation in nucleus, the
zeta potential measurement was carried out as shown in Fig.
S12. The zeta potential of GO-KH550-DNDT was 0.171 mV. It
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electrostatic forces between DNA and GO-KH550-DNDT.
In summary, we have organically modified GO with fluorescent
7126.
DNDT, which made this carbon material (GO-KH550-DNDT
with excellent fluorescence performances. And also, thanks to
the supramolecule interactions between DNDTs, GO-KH550- 13 Y. Xu, Z. Liu, X. Zhang, Y. Wang, J. Tian, Y. Huang, Y. Ma, X.
)
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DNDT displayed more aggregated behaviours in the solid state.
However, in the solution state, GO-KH550-DNDT
demonstrated better and better dispersion ability and very
excellent photostability. Even this soft interaction was so
sensitive to temperature changes. Considering that GO-KH550-
4 | J. Name., 2012, 00, 1-3
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