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

项目摘要（参见说明）： 基于共轭聚合物的荧光试剂已被证明可用于廉价且可现场便携式检测纳克至飞克级别的硝基芳香族炸药，并且已商业化。 共轭聚合物在此类传感应用中具有优势，因为其激发态激子沿聚合物链的离域提供了传感器放大和显着的灵敏度。该技术将适用于设计分离和检测有毒物质的测试，例如在超级基金现场发现的多环芳烃。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族有机超级基金毒物。还将开发新的荧光试剂来分离和识别砷酸盐、镉(II)、铅(II)、汞(II)和铬(VI)，这些是污染场地中常见的超级基金无机毒物。拟议的工作重点是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基质上进行多重分析，以便使用微孔板成像方法进行定量。为这些测试开发的新型荧光试剂在其他中心应用中很有前景，例如可视化和定位整个生物体和细胞内的有毒物质。低成本且易于携带的薄层色谱荧光测定法也可适用于其他应用，例如筛选超富集植物，这些植物正在加州大学圣地亚哥分校中心进行检查，并且由于其在修复砷土壤污染方面的潜力而令人感兴趣。

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.