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可用于纳克至毫微微克水平的硝基芳族炸药的廉价和现场便携式检测，其已被商业化。 共轭聚合物在这种传感应用中是有利的，因为它们的激发态激子沿聚合物链沿着的离域提供了传感器放大和显著的灵敏度。这项技术将用于设计分离和检测有毒物质的试验，如在超级基金场址发现的多环芳烃。荧光聚合物试剂将被末端官能化，因此它们可以共价锚定到色谱支持物上，以允许分离混合物。开发这项新技术的目的是研制一种廉价的成套工具，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族有机超级基金毒物。还将开发新的荧光试剂，以分离和鉴定砷酸盐、镉（II）、铅（II）、汞（II）和铬（VI），这些都是在污染场地发现的常见超级基金无机毒物。在拟议的工作中，特别强调中心其他研究人员正在检查的特定毒物。最有前途的分析将在更大的色谱底物上进行多重分析，以便使用微孔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很有前途，例如在整个生物体和细胞内可视化和定位毒物。薄层色谱荧光检测，是低成本和便携式的，也可以适用于其他应用，如筛选超积累植物，这是正在审查的UCSD中心，是有趣的，因为它们的潜力，砷土壤污染的修复。

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.