Self-assembled fluorescent tripeptide nanoparticles for bioimaging and drug delivery applications

Peptide self-assembled nanomaterials have attracted more and more attention due to their wide applications such as drug delive ry,cell imaging,and real-time drug monitoring.However,the application of the peptide is still limited by its inherent optical properties.Here we proposed and prepared a series of fluorescent tripeptide nanoparticles(TPNPs) through π-π stacking and zinc coordination.The experimental results show that the nanoparticles(TPNPs 1) formed by the self-assembly of the tripeptide tryptophan-tryptophan-tryptophan have the highest fluorescence intensity,uniform and appropriate size,and low cytotoxicity.Furthermore,there was fluorescence resonance between TPNPs1 and doxorubicin,which has been successfully applied for real-time cell imaging and drug release monitoring.