AIEgen-Based Lifetime-Probes for Precise Furin Quantification and Identification of Cell Subtypes

Biochemical sensing probes based on aggregation-induced-emission luminogens (AIEgens) are widely used in biological imaging and therapy, chemical sensing, and material sciences. However, it is still a great challenge to quantify the targets through fluorescence intensity of AIEgen probes due to their undesirable aggregations. Here, a PyTPA-ZGO probe with three lifetime signals for precise quantification of furin is constructed: the lifetime signal 1 and signal 2 comes from AIEgen PyTPA-P (τ Pn ) and inorganic nanoparticles Zn 2 GeO 4 :Mn 2+ -NH 2 (τ Zn ), respectively, while the lifetime signal 3 is marked as the composite dual-lifetime signal (CDLS n , C D L S n = τ Z n τ P n ). In contrast, the fluorescence intensity signal of PyTPA-P shows defectively quantitative performance. Furthermore, it is found that the CDLS n exhibits higher significant differences than the two other lifetime signals (τ Pn and τ Zn ) thanks to its wide range between the maximum and minimum signal values and small standard deviation. Therefore, CDLS n is further used to accurately identify cell subtypes based on the specific concentration of furin in each subtype. The lifetime criterion can realize precise quantification, and it should be a promising direction of AIEgen-based quantitative analysis in the future.