AIEgen-Based Fluorescent Nanomaterials for Bacterial Detection and its Inhibition

The infections caused by bacteria have affected human health severely. The bacterial infections spread either directly or indirectly by coming in contact with the food during packaging or by the use of medical devices. The efficient theranostic systems for bacteria provide therapeutic effects that have received attentions in the research field. In this prospect, the fluorescent materials have gained tremendous recognition in the biological applications due to their excellent species diversity, optical properties and high sensitivity. However, most of the conventional fluorophores suffer aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) effects in the aggregated state. The opposite of ACQ is Aggregation Induced Emission (AIE), where AIEgens play an important role in the imaging, detecting and killing the bacteria as well. In this context, we have summarized the applications of AIEgens on multiple bacterial imaging, detection, discrimination and antibacterial activity to understand the modern theranostic system.