Quenching dendrimers

Both energy and electron transfer quenchers have been employed to show that the quenching rates of the fullerene triplet state are decreased as a function of the size of the dendrimer shell [36]. These results further demonstrate that fullerene is an excellent functional group to probe the accessibility of a dendrimer core by external molecules. 

Self-assembly of functionalized carboxylate-core dendrons around Er +, Tb +, or Eu + ions leads to the formation of dendrimers [19]. Experiments carried out in toluene solution showed that UV excitation of the chromophoric groups contained in the branches caused the sensitized emission of the lanthanide ion, presumably by an energy transfer Forster mechanism. The much lower sensitization effect found for Eu + compared with Tb + was ascribed to a weaker spectral overlap, but it could be related to the fact that Eu + can quench the donor excited state by electron transfer [20]. 

Luminescence experiments in dichloromethane solution indicated that the fluorescence of the phenylacetylene branches is quenched, whereas intense emission is observed from the binaphthol core. This antenna effect represents the first example of efficient (>99%) energy migration in an optically pure dendrimer. The fluorescence quantum yield increases slightly with increasing generation the values of 0.30,0.32, and 0.40 were obtained, respectively, for 10-12. 

Quantitative analysis of the results obtained has shown that a single eosin guest is sufficient to completely quench the fluorescence of any excited dansyl unit of the hosting dendrimer. Fluorescence lifetime measurements indicated that the dye molecules can occupy two different sites (or two families of substantially different sites) in the interior of the dendritic structure. 

It has been demonstrated that dendrimers can be used also as fluorescent sensors for metal ions. Poly(propylene amine) dendrimers functionalized with dansyl units at the periphery like 34 can coordinate metal ions by the aliphatic amine units contained in the interior of the dendrimer [80]. The advantage of a dendrimer for this kind of application is related to the fact that a single analyte can interact with a great number of fluorescent units, which results in signal amplification. For example, when a Co ion enters dendrimer 34, the fluorescence of all the 32 dansyl units is quenched with a 32-fold increase in sensitivity with respect to a normal dansyl sensor. This concept is illustrated in Fig. 3. 

For instance, a dendrimer easily can be coupled with a large number of fluorescent dyes and still provide additional coupling sites for biotinylation. The only limitation to the number of fluorescent modifications is if fluorescence quenching starts to take place, in which case no further modifications will result in increased signal. A series of such conjugates using different levels of fluorophore modification should be done to determine the optimal level of dye-to-dendrimer before quenching occurs. 

Figure 13.11 Stern-Volmer constant Ksv for the quenching of Ru(bpyh2+ (5 juW ) by MV2+ in air-saturated aqueous solutions of PAMAM dendrimers. Adapted from ref. 23...

Frechet and co-workers [32] studied the ability of the dendrimer shell to provide site isolation of the core porphyrin moiety, using benzene-terminated dendrimers Zn[G-n]4P (i.e. 6). From the cyclic voltammograms in CH2C12, the interfacial electron transfer rate between the porphyrin core and the electrode surface decreased with increasing dendrimer generation. However, small molecules like benzyl viologen could still penetrate the shell of 6 to access the porphyrin core as observed from the quenching of porphyrin fluorescence. Their results also revealed that the dendritic shell did not interfere electrochemically or photochemically with the porphyrin core moiety. 

They also investigated the quenching of the azobenzene dendrimer fluorescence by Eosin Y (2/,4/,5/,7/-tetrabromofluorescein dianion) [35]. It was concluded that Eosin Y was hosted in these dendrimers and Z-form dendrimers were more efficient hosts than E-form dendrimers. 

---