Fluorescence Microscopic Image Analysis of Nucleic Acids Based on The Capillary Flow Directed Assembly Ring of Neutral Red-nucleic Acid Supramolecular Complexes

It is critical to establish a direct and precise method with a high sensitivity and selectivity in analytical chemistry. In this research, making use of a well known phenomenon of capillary flow, we have proposed an image analysis method of nucleic acids at the price of a small amount of sample. When a droplet of the supramolecular complex solution, formed by neutral red and nucleic acids(NA) under an approximate neutral condition, was placed on the hydrophobic surface of dimethyl dichlorosilane pretreated glass slides, and it was evaporated, the supramolecular complex exhibited the periphery of the droplet due to the capillary effect, and accumulated there to form a red capillary flow directed assembly ring(CFDAR). A typical CFDAR has an outer diameter of (2 r ) about 1.18 mm and a ring width(2 δ ) of about 41 μm. Depending on the experimental conditions, a variety of CFDAR can be assembled. The experimental results are in agreement with our former theoretical discussion. It was found that when a droplet volume is 0.1 μL, the fluorescence intensity of the CFDAR formed by the NR NA is in proportion to the content of calf thymus DNA in the range of 0-0.28 ng, fish sperm DNA of 0-0.24 ng and yeast RNA of 0-0.16 ng with the limit of detection(3 σ ) of 1 7, 1.4 and 0.9 pg, respectively for the three nucleic acids.

Selective Construction of Borromean Rings and Tweezer-Like Molecular Assembly Featuring Cp^(*)Rh/Ir Clips for Near-Infrared Photothermal Conversion

Making full use of coordination-driven self-assembly strategy,we herein described the selective synthesis of a molecular Borromean rings and two cases of “U”-shaped tweezer-like molecular assemblies in high yield by using bipyridyl ligands based on biphenyl unit and half-sandwich binuclear rhodium(III)/iridium(III) building blocks.The selective synthesis was realized by adjusting the length of dipyridyl arms.The utilization of curved U-shaped bipyridyl ligand L1 led to tweezer-like molecular assemblies.Subsequently,olefinic bonds were introduced to elongate dipyridyl arms obtaining ligand L2.The ligand L2 has two stable conformations,U-shape and Z-shape,which facilitated the formation of different topologies including the tetranuclear macrocycle and Borromean rings with different building blocks in this work.These structures in solid and solution all have been further confirmed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction,NMR analysis,and mass spectrometry.In addition,as an important driving force,π-π stacking interactions not only played a significant role in the stability of structures but also further triggered photothermal conversion in solution.The experimental results demonstrated that compounds 1a and 2 had good NIR photothermal conversion efficiency (11.83% and 17.76%),and further analysis found the photothermal conversion efficiency had a gradual increase in the trend with the π-π stacking interactions increasing.This research expands the application of topological structures in materials science and provides a new idea for the synthesis of novel photothermal conversion materials.