Supramolecular photochemical self-assemblies for fluorescence "turn on" and "turn off" assays for chem-bio-helices.

We describe the development of an optical sensing system for the high-throughput screening (HTS) of a broad range of biological molecules, whole cells, organisms and pathogens, and illustrate the technology applications by a hyaluronidase enzyme activity assay as a specific example. At the core of the technology described in this paper, is the exciton concept that is relevant to molecular aggregation. J-aggregates of cyanine dyes have a narrower, red-shifted absorption band compared to monomer.

Biocidal activity of a light-absorbing fluorescent conjugated polyelectrolyte.

Herein we describe studies that indicate a cationic conjugated polyelectrolyte shows biocidal activity against gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, E. coli, BL21, with plasmids for Azurin and ampicillin resistance) and gram-positive bacterial spores (Bacillus anthracis, Sterne, B. anthracis, Sterne).

Superquenching in cyanine pendant poly(L-lysine) dyes: dependence on molecular weight, solvent, and aggregation.

A series of poly(L-lysines) ranging in number of repeat units (N(PRU)) from 6 to 900 has been synthesized and the photophysics of the series and monomer cyanine dye have been studied in solution. In water or aqueous dimethyl sulfoxide, the oligomers and polymers exhibit high sensitivity to fluorescence quenching by oppositely charged electron acceptors; in this study, 9,10-anthraquinone-2,6-disulfonate was used as a quencher for the cationic fluorescent polyelectrolytes. Quenching constants (K(SV)) measured in 50:50 (v/v) dimethyl sulfoxide-water increase monotonically with increase in N(PRU) ranging from 630 M(-1) for monomer to 1.