TY - JOUR A1 - Felbeck, Tom A1 - Behnke, Thomas A1 - Hoffmann, Katrin A1 - Grabolle, Markus A1 - Lezhnina, M.M. A1 - Kynast, U.H. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute T1 - Nile-red-nanoclay hybrids: Red emissive optical probes for use in aqueous dispersion JF - Langmuir N2 - Water-dispersible and (bio)functionalizable nanoclays have a considerable potential as inexpensive carriers for organic molecules like drugs and fluorophores. Aiming at simple design strategies for red-emissive optical probes for the life sciences from commercial precursors with minimum synthetic effort, we systematically studied the dye loading behavior and stability of differently functionalized laponites. Here, we present a comprehensive study of the absorption and emission properties of the red emissive hydrophobic and neutral dye Nile Red, a well-known polarity probe, which is almost insoluble and nonemissive in water. Adsorption of this probe onto disk-shaped nanoclays was studied in aqueous dispersion as function of dye concentration, in the absence and presence of the cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) assisting dye loading, and as a function of pH. This laponite loading strategy yields strongly fluorescent nanoclay suspensions with a fluorescence quantum yield of 0.34 at low dye loading concentration. The dye concentration-, CTAB-, and pH-dependent absorption, fluorescence emission, and fluorescence excitation spectra of the Nile-Red6#8211;nanoclay suspensions suggest the formation of several Nile Red species including emissive Nile Red monomers facing a polar environment, nonemissive H-type dimers, and protonated Nile Red molecules that are also nonfluorescent. Formation of all nonemissive Nile Red species could be suppressed by modification of the laponite with CTAB. This underlines the great potential of properly modified and functionalized laponite nanodisks as platform for optical probes with drug delivery capacities, for example, for tumor and therapy imaging. Moreover, comparison of the Nile Red dimer absorption spectra with absorption spectra of previously studied Nile Red aggregates in dendrimer systems and micelles and other literature systems reveals a considerable dependence of the dimer absorption band on microenvironment polarity which has not yet been reported so far for H-type dye aggregates. KW - Nile Red KW - Dye KW - Laponite KW - Nanoclay KW - Photoluminescence KW - Fluorescence KW - Polarity probe KW - Aggregate KW - Dimer PY - 2013 UR - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/la402165q DO - https://doi.org/10.1021/la402165q SN - 0743-7463 SN - 1520-5827 VL - 29 IS - 36 SP - 11489 EP - 11497 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington, DC AN - OPUS4-29017 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Felbeck, Tom A1 - Hoffmann, Katrin A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute A1 - Lezhnina, M.M. A1 - Kynast, U.H. T1 - Fluorescent nanoclays: Covalent functionalization with amine reactive dyes from different fluorophone classes and surface group quantification JF - The journal of physical chemistry / C N2 - The ever increasing applications of fluorescence techniques in conjunction with the interest in enhanced detection sensitivities in bioanalysis, biosensing, and bioimaging are closely linked to the rational design of novel nontoxic fluorescent nanomaterials with improved brightness and stability that can be reproducibly synthesized from inexpensive starting materials in simple one-pot reactions and easily surface functionalized. This encouraged us to investigate the potential of the commercially available water-dispersible nanoclay Laponite RD with the empirical formula Na0.7(H2O)n{(Li0.3Mg5.5)[Si8O20(OH)4]}, forming 25 nm sized disk-shaped particles, as nanocarriers for different fluorophores. The Si–OH functions at the rims of these disks can be selectively grafted with 3-aminopropyldimethylethoxysilane (APES), thereby enabling subsequent coupling to amine-reactive molecules ranging from target-specific organic ligands and biomolecules to amine-reactive fluorescent labels. Here, we present different strategies for the surface functionalization of nanoclays and the subsequent quantification of the density of synthetically introduced surface amino groups exploiting analytical methods which rely on different detection schemes including elemental analysis, colorimetric assays, and fluorophore labeling strategies. In this respect, we systematically assess the potential of negatively and positively charged, neutral, and zwitterionic dyes to act as fluorescent labels for amino functionalities at the surface of negatively charged nanoclays. Our studies underline the strong influence of dye charge and aggregation tendency on the brightness of the bound dyes and on surface group quantification. Best results regarding surface group analysis and coupling yield were obtained for a neutral dansyl derivative and fluorescamine. PY - 2015 DO - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.5b01482 SN - 1932-7447 SN - 1089-5639 VL - 119 IS - 23 SP - 12978 EP - 12987 PB - Soc. CY - Washington, DC AN - OPUS4-33614 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Felbeck, T. A1 - Mundinger, S. A1 - Lezhnina, M.M. A1 - Staniford, M. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute A1 - Kynast, U.H. T1 - Multifold fluorescence enhancement in nanoscopic fluorophore-clay hybrids in transparent aqueous media JF - Chemistry - A European journal N2 - Valuable emissive properties of organic fluorophores have become indispensable analytical tools in biophotonics, but frequently suffer from low solubilities and radiationless deactivation in aqueous media, that is, in biological ambience as well. In this report, nanoscaled dye–clay hybrids based on laponite, Na0.7{(Li0.3Mg5.5)[Si8O20(OH)4]}, are taken advantage of to solubilize neutral dyes, which are natively not encountered in water. Previously reported efficiency and solubility bottlenecks of such hybrids can to a large extent be overcome by comparably simple chemical measures, as demonstrated here for two prominent examples, the fluorescent dyes Nile Red and Coumarin 153. On controlled co-adsorption of small bifunctional quaternary ammonium ions (Me3N+C2H5OH and Me3N+C2H5NH2) we observed an outright efficiency boost by an order of magnitude, and a 30-fold brightness gain. Even at higher concentrations, transparency and stability of the hybrid dispersions are retained, rendering them useful for employment as optically functional nanoparticles in bioassays and beyond. KW - Biophotonics KW - Clay KW - Fluorescence KW - Hybrids KW - Nanoparticles PY - 2015 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201406416 SN - 0947-6539 SN - 1521-3765 VL - 21 IS - 20 SP - 7582 EP - 7587 PB - Wiley-VCH Verl. CY - Weinheim AN - OPUS4-33816 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Felbeck, T. A1 - Lezhnina, M.M. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute A1 - Kynast, U.H. T1 - Red emissive nanoclay hybrids in transparent aqueous dispersion-towards optical applications in biophotonics JF - Journal of luminescence N2 - Hydrophobic guest molecules like organic dyes and metal–ion complexes can be introduced into aqueous media via adsorption onto inorganic nanoclay host materials such as nm-sized laponite. Dispersions of these organic–inorganic hybrid materials show several advantageous properties like minimum light scattering due to their small size in the nanometer regime, ease of modification, low cost, low toxicity, and long-term stability, making them perfect candidates as signaling units and optically active materials in photonics and biotechnology. In this study, we summarize first findings on the easy-to-make, but chemically and optically fairly complex behavior of nanoclay hybrids for biotechnological applications. The latter includes the preparation of nanomaterials, which are colloidally stable in buffers and in the presence of biomolecules like proteins, and methods to control their surface chemistry. For this purpose, we used two red emitting fluorophores, the small organic dye Nile Red and the rare earth complex Eu(ttfa)3(topo)2, and evaluated the interaction of the red nanoclay hybrids with two model proteins, bovine serum albumin and β-lactoglobulin. We were able to monitor the formation of the protein corona around these hybrids using absorption and luminescence spectroscopy. KW - Nile Red KW - Europium complex KW - Protein corona KW - Nanoclay hybrids KW - Polarity probe PY - 2016 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlumin.2014.11.039 SN - 0022-2313 SN - 1872-7883 VL - 169 SP - 728 EP - 732 PB - North-Holland Publ. Co. CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-33817 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -