Project 8: Field Portable Fluorescent Sensing Methods for Detecting Superfund Po

项目总结(见说明)： 基于共轭聚合物的荧光试剂已被证明对已商业化的毫微克到毫微克级别的硝基芳香族炸药的廉价和现场便携检测有用。 共轭聚合物在这种传感应用中具有优势，因为它们的激发态激子沿聚合物链的离域提供了传感器放大和显著的灵敏度。这项技术将被用于设计分离和检测有毒物质的测试，例如在超级基金网站发现的多环芳烃。荧光聚合物试剂将被末端官能化，这样它们就可以共价固定在色谱载体上，从而实现混合物的分离。开发这项新技术的目的是开发一种廉价的试剂盒，用于快速同时分离和鉴定具有致癌和/或内分泌干扰特性的多环芳香有机超级基金毒物。还将开发新的荧光试剂来分离和鉴定砷酸盐、镉(11)、铅(11)、汞(11)和铬(VI)，这些都是在受污染地点发现的常见的超级基金无机毒物。在拟议的工作中，特别强调中心的其他调查人员正在检查的特定毒物。最有希望的分析将被多路传输到更大的色谱层底物上，以便使用微板成像方法进行定量。为这些测试开发的新荧光试剂在其他中心应用中也很有前景，例如在整个生物体和细胞内可视化和定位毒物。薄层荧光分析成本低，便于携带，还可以应用于其他应用，如筛选超积累植物，这些植物正在加州大学圣迭戈分校的中心进行检查，因为它们在修复土壤砷污染方面的潜力很有趣。

PROJECT SUMMARY (See instructions): Fluorescent reagents based on conjugate polymers have proven useful for inexpensive and field-portable detection of nanogram to femtogram levels of nitroaromatic explosives, which have been commercialized. Conjugated polymers are advantageous in such sensing applications, because delocalization of their excited state exciton along the polymer chain provides sensor amplification and remarkable sensitivity. This technology will be adapted to design tests for separating and detecting toxicants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, found at Superfund sites. Fluorescent polymer reagents will be end-functionalized so they can be covalently anchored to chromatographic supports in order to permit separation of mixtures. This new technology will be developed with the aim of an inexpensive kit for the rapid simultaneous separation and identification of polycyclic aromatic organic Superfund toxicants that exhibit carcinogenic and/or endocrine disrupting properties. New fluorometric reagents will also be developed to separate and identify arsenate, cadmium(ll), lead(ll), mercury(ll), and chromium(VI), which are common Superfund inorganic toxicants found in contaminated sites. Special emphasis in the proposed work centers on specific toxicants that are being examined by other investigators in the center. The most promising analyses will be multiplexed on larger chromatographic substrates for quantification using microplate imaging methods. New fluorescent reagents developed for these tests are promising in other center applications, such as visualizing and localizing toxicants within whole organisms and cells. Thin-layer-chromatographic fluorescent assays that are low cost and readily portable could also be adapted to other applications, such as screening for hyperaccumulating plants, which are being examined in the UCSD center and are interesting because of their potential in remediation of arsenic soil contamination.