A self-assembled micellar nanoprobe for specific recognition of hydrazine in vitro and in vivo

Hydrazine is a probable human carcinogen and exhibits critical damage to living system. Developing an effective method to detect hydrazine in living samples holds great potential for cancer diagnosis, treatment, and management. In this work, we first fabricate a self-assembled micellar nanoprobe for specific recognition of hydrazine in vitro and in vivo in aqueous solution. The novel probe (T-M) contains a triphenylamine fluorophore as a reporter and malononitrile group as the triggered moiety, then we encapsulated T-M into the hydrophobic interior of an amphiphilic copolymer (mPEG-DSPE) and prepared a novel self-assembled micellar nanoprobe: NanoT-M. The nanoprobe exhibits ultra-sensitivity, high selectivity and good biocompatibility. Furthermore, the nanoprobe shows favourable cellular uptaken and was successfully used to detect intracellular hydrazine in living cells.