%0 Journal Article
%T Self-Assembly of Highly Stable Zirconium(IV) Coordination Cages with Aggregation Induced Emission Molecular Rotors for Live-Cell Imaging.
%A Dong J
%A Pan Y
%A Wang H
%A Yang K
%A Liu L
%A Qiao Z
%A Yuan YD
%A Peh SB
%A Zhang J
%A Shi L
%A Liang H
%A Han Y
%A Li X
%A Jiang J
%A Liu B
%A Zhao D
%J Angew Chem Int Ed Engl
%V 59
%N 25
%D 06 2020 15
%M 31859381
%F 16.823
%R 10.1002/anie.201915199
%X The self-assembly of highly stable zirconium(IV)-based coordination cages with aggregation induced emission (AIE) molecular rotors for in vitro bio-imaging is reported. The two coordination cages, NUS-100 and NUS-101, are assembled from the highly stable trinuclear zirconium vertices and two flexible carboxyl-decorated tetraphenylethylene (TPE) spacers. Extensive experimental and theoretical results show that the emissive intensity of the coordination cages can be controlled by restricting the dynamics of AIE-active molecular rotors though multiple external stimuli. Because the two coordination cages have excellent chemical stability in aqueous solutions (pH stability: 2-10) and impressive AIE characteristics contributed by the molecular rotors, they can be employed as novel biological fluorescent probes for in vitro live-cell imaging.