Aggregation-Induced Emission and Retention of Crystal Chiral Information of Tetraphenylethylene Incorporated by Polysaccharides in Water

Polysaccharides, such as pullulan and lambda-carrageenan, can incorporate tetraphenylethylene derivatives through self-aggregation in water by a high-speed vibration milling method, which cannot be done by sonication and heating methods. Aggregation-induced emission is observed from the tetraphenylethylene-polysaccharide complexes. Furthermore, the tetraphenylethylene self-assembled into polysaccharides is able to preserve the initial helical chirality (M- or P-helicity) of the crystals in water after ball milling. Intracellular uptake of the polysaccharide-complexed tetraphenylethylene derivative with a phenol unit by HeLa cells is enhanced compared with that without the phenol unit.