研究目的

Investigating the therapeutic effects of a specific herbal medicine on a particular disease.

研究成果

In conclusion, we have reported a fluorogenic probe for bacteria imaging. The probe 1 was an imidazolium-derived pyrene compound, which self-assembled to form nano-particles and the pyrene fluorescence was quenched by the aggregation effects. This imidazolium-derived pyrene aggregate bound anionic bacteria surface, and disassembled to form various combinations of pyrene monomer and excimer binding modes, as controlled by the differential interaction with various bacteria surfaces. Depending on this transformable ability, our probe can rapidly identify 6 species of bacteria. The probe bound bacteria surfaces and displayed both pyrene-excimer and pyrene-monomer fluorescence, which gave ratiometric signal. Then, fluorescent labeling by the probe enabled the two-photo ratiometric imaging of bacteria. The ability of discriminating bacterial surface differences makes it possible for our one-molecule sensor to detect even more bacterial species than our current report. We're currently using this sensor to study more bacterial species and track bacterial resistance.

研究不足

The technical and application constraints of the experiments, as well as potential areas for optimization.