Spectroscopic Studies of Cyanine Dyes and Serum Albumins for Bioanalytical Applications
Abstract
The use of cyanine dyes in bioanalytical applications has become a widely explored topic of interest in chemistry. Their ability to absorb and fluoresce in the UV-visible and near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum benefits their use as imaging probes and fluorescent labels due to the reduced auto-fluorescence from biological molecules. The behavior of these dyes lies in their structure which consists of two nitrogen containing heterocycles joined by an electron deficient polymethine bridge that allows specific energy transitions to occur. The first portion of this work aims to explore dye functionality for analytical applications regarding the non-covalent labeling of bovine serum albumin. The second portion of the work explores dye interactions with human serum albumin in biological membrane mimetic environments using the ternary system of sodium dioctyl sulfosuccinate (AOT) in water and n-heptane.