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Assembly of highly efficient aqueous light-harvesting system from sequence-defined peptoids for cytosolic microRNA detection

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Abstract

Precisely controlled spatial distributions of artificial light-harvesting systems in aqueous media are of significant importance for mimicking natural light-harvesting systems; however, they are often restrained by the solubility and the aggregation-caused quenching effect of the hydrophobic chromophores. Herein, we report one highly efficient artificial light-harvesting system based on peptoid nanotubes that mimic the hierarchical cylindrical structure of natural systems. The high crystallinity of these nanotubes enabled the organization of arrays of donor chromophores with precisely controlled spatial distributions, favoring an efficient Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) process in aqueous media. This FRET system exhibits an extremely high efficiency of 98.6% with a fluorescence quantum yield of 40% and an antenna effect of 29.9. We further demonstrated the use of this artificial light-harvesting system for quantifying miR-210 within cancer cells. The fluorescence intensity ratio of donor to acceptor is linearly related to the concentration of intercellular miR-210 in the range of 3.3–156 copies/cell. Such high sensitivity in intracellular detection of miR-210 using this artificial light-harvesting system offers a great opportunity and pathways for biological imaging and detection, and for the further creation of microRNA (miRNA) toolbox for quantitative epigenetics and personalized medicine.

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Acknowledgements

The synthesis and characterizations of peptoid materials were supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Science and Engineering under an award FWP 65357 at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Y. L. would like to acknowledge the Cougar Cage Fund for the work of biological imaging and detection of microRNA. Development of peptoid synthesis capabilities was supported by the Materials Synthesis and Simulation Across Scales (MS3) Initiative through the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program at PNNL. XRD work was conducted at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which was supported by the Office of Science (No. DE-AC02-05CH11231). PNNL is multi-program national laboratory operated for Department of Energy by Battelle (No. DE-AC05-76RL01830).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, 99164, USA

    Yang Song, Xiaoli Cai, Dan Du & Yuehe Lin

  2. Division of Physical Sciences, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, 99352, USA

    Yang Song, Mingming Wang & Chun-Long Chen

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Chun-Long Chen

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  1. Yang Song
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Correspondence to Yuehe Lin or Chun-Long Chen.

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Assembly of highly efficient aqueous light-harvesting system from sequence-defined peptoids for cytosolic microRNA detection

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Song, Y., Cai, X., Wang, M. et al. Assembly of highly efficient aqueous light-harvesting system from sequence-defined peptoids for cytosolic microRNA detection. Nano Res. 17, 788–796 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6008-0

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