Developing and Characterizing Microparticles with Multiple Dye Enclosures to Enhance Fluorescence Properties

Abstract

Cross-linking of polymer is a simple way to improve stability of dyes into a polymer matrix according to using in different application. In this study spherical poly(methacrylic acid-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) microparticles consisting of curcumin, rhodamine B and crystal violet were synthesized by precipitation polymerization to obtained possible synergistic effect and Förster resonance energy transfer in a single platform. The synthesized microparticles were characterized using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, fluorescence spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering, and differential scanning calorimetry. Microparticles containing curcumin and crystal violet showed 2.7 times higher intensity than microparticles containing curcumin and rhodamine B and 14 times higher fluorescence intensity compared to microparticles containing curcumin only. Also, the most unpredictable result belonged to the microparticles containing crystal violet and rhodamine B. It showed approximately 5 and 2 times higher fluorescence intensity compared to microparticles containing curcumin and rhodamine B and microparticles containing curcumin and crystal violet, respectively. This finding enabled us to design microparticles with minimum toxic effect due to low contents of rhodamine B for bioimaging applications with high sensitivity.