| Sumario: | Specific bioprobes with fluorescence turn-on response are highly desirable for high contrast biosensing and imaging. In this work, we developed a new generation bioprobe by integrating tetraphenylsiole, a fluorogenic unit with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristic, with cyclic arginine-glycine-aspartic acid tripeptide (cRGD), a targeting ligand to integrin αβ receptor. Emission of the AIE probe is switched on upon its specific binding to integrin αβ, which allows quantitative detection of integrin αβ, in solution and real-time imaging of the binding process between cRGD and integrin αβ on cell membrane. The probe can be used for tracking integrin αβ and for identifying integrin αβ-positive cancer cells.
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