Chromenylium Star Polymers: Merging Water Solubility and Stealth Properties with Shortwave Infrared Emissive Fluorophores.

ABSTRACT: Fluorescence imaging in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) region has emerged as a vital tool for studying mammals. SWIR emissive polymethine dyes are well-suited to this endeavor; however, advancing in vivo imaging utility with these dyes is primarily limited by hydrophobicity and/or nonspecific protein association. Herein, we take a distinct approach to combine hydrophilicity and stealth behavior to construct bright, SWIR emissive chromenylium fluorophores by employing a well-defined poly(2-methyl-2-oxazoline) (POx) star polymer architecture, which we refer to as chromenylium stars, or "CStars." Of these polymer-shielded dyes, the variant containing five POx chains (CStar30) boasts particularly enhanced aqueous solubility and SWIR brightness, enabling high-resolution SWIR imagin

SUBMITTER: Mobley EB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11869135 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature