Facile Preparation of Multicolor Polymer Nanoparticle Bioconjugates with Specific Biorecognition

A facile and efficient strategy to prepare multicolor and surface-functionalizable conjugated polymer nanoparticles (PPV_seg-COOH CPNs) was demonstrated. The CPNs with tunable photoluminescence colors and carboxylate groups were further covalently modified with a series of specific molecules such as streptavidin, IgG and poly­(ethylene glycol) to show their generality for subsequent bioconjugation and biological applications. The streptavidin coating can significantly improve the photostability of the PPV_seg-SA CPNs, which indicates that specific biomolecules such as streptavidin functionalization of multicolor PPV_seg-COOH CPNs can be applied to achieve high optical stability of CPNs in various buffer solutions, metal ions for many biological applications. Furthermore, the resulted PPV_seg-SA CPNs also show efficient labeling ability in specific cellular imaging. The synthetic methods present the feasibility and versatility for further developing surface-functionalizable CPNs probes with full-color tunability for biological imaging and bioanalytical applications