Novel Fluorescence-Based Strategies for Visualizing Chemical Interactions in Lipid Membranes

Understanding cellular signaling and cellular function in disease and health and developing faster diagnostics for disease detection, to namebut a few of the emerging frontiers in natural sciences, demand that weimprove our ability to visualize and quantify fluctuations in chemicalcomposition, chemical interactions and macromolecular structure in thecell. Our research activities center in the use of fluorescence-basedstrategies to achieve these goals. Specifically, we are working ondeveloping novel fluorescence-based strategies for investigating thestructural and dynamic nature of supramolecular interactions in lipidmembranes.

In my presentation I will first discuss our progress in the preparationand testing of novel fluorescent probes for reactive oxygen species(ROS) detection in the lipid membrane of live cells. Immediateapplications of the probes involve the generation of achemical/spectroscopy platform to enable the in vivo "redoxvisualization" at the cell membrane. Mounting evidence suggests thatROS serve as messengers in cellular signal transduction; the probesproposed herein will enable, in the long term, exploring theimplications and ramifications of this new paradigm. I will furtherdiscuss recent progress in our research group in developing a sensitivetechnology capable of reporting lipid membrane interactions in a highthroughput assay. We are working on a novel creative solution to thischallenge which relies on encapsulating water-soluble conjugated lightemitting polymers (CPs) within liposomes as a means to generate thenecessary reporting system, a liposome beacon. I will discuss our recentensemble and single molecule fluorescence studies on liposome beacons.