Abstract
Protein nanofibrils (PNFs) functionalized with multiple dyes are prepared by a combination of mechanochemistry and liquid-phase self-assembly. The three employed dyes are Fluorescent Brightener 378 (F378), 2-butyl-6-(butylamino)-1H-benzo[de]isoquinoline-1,3(2H)-dione (Fluorol 555), and Nile red (NR). F378 acts as the donor with Fluorol 555 as the acceptor. F555 in turn acts as the donor and NR as the acceptor. This enables a FRET cascade that enables conversion of UV light to white light. The efficiency of FRET can be influenced by the details of the self-assembly process. If proteins milled with different dyes are mixed prior to self-assembly, nanofibrils are formed containing all three dyes, thus favoring FRET processes. By tuning the ratio of the three luminescent dyes, PNF dispersions are obtained that display bright white light emission. Moreover, the PNF dispersions can be converted into white luminescent films and gels where the PNFs may help to organize dye molecules. Additionally, the PNF materials can be employed as coatings on commercial LEDs, enabling emission of white light.
Highlights
With the increasing interest in the development of polymeric materials from sustainable sources, there has been renewed interest in employing bio-based polymeric materials for novel applications
The resulting hybrids (F378@Hen egg white lysozyme (HEWL), F555@HEWL, and Nile red (NR)@HEWL) are dissolved in acidic water, and LPNFs are formed by two different methods (Figure 1)
In method A, each material (HEWL milled with one dye) is heated separately, resulting in an LPNF functionalized with one type of dye
Summary
With the increasing interest in the development of polymeric materials from sustainable sources, there has been renewed interest in employing bio-based polymeric materials for novel applications. There has been much interest recently in developing luminescent materials based on biopolymers, and such materials have been applied to a wide variety of research areas including bioimaging,[1] information encoding or encryption,[2] biomimetic actuators,[3] and LEDs,[4−6] and a wide range of approaches are employed to generate white light.[7−9] A wide range of biopolymeric materials have been employed to form luminescent materials, including DNA,[10,11] fluorescent proteins,[12−14] cellulose,[15,16] and polysaccharides.[17,18] These biopolymers possess several attractive characteristics. DNA contains binding sites, including major and minor grooves, to which chromophores may bind, enabling functionalization. Cellulose nanofibrils have attractive mechanical properties but do not have the wide range of binding sites possessed by DNA, which makes functionalization with dyes more challenging even though cellulose can be stained by dyes as well as chemically modified enabling binding of emitters.[19]
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