Intended and Unintended Consequences and Applications of Unnatural Interfaces: Oligo p -Phenylene Ethynylene Electrolytes, Biological Cells and Biomacromolecules

摘要

This short review focuses on an extended study of synthetic oligomericphenyleneethynylene (OPE) electrolytes that have been investigated for both their antimicrobial activity and their fluorescence sensing properties. In both cases, interfaces between these synthetic electrolytes and naturally occurring materials such as proteins, lipids, nucleic acids and cells are critical to their function or activity. The review contains a general overview with a focus at the end on three recent examples including biological and chemical sensing, induction of spore germination and fluorescent detection of amyloid protein aggregates.