Water-dispersible fluorescent nanospheres from poly(solketal acrylate)-block-poly(2-hydroxyethyl acrylate)

Reported in this paper is the preparation of fluorescent nanospheres from poly(solketal acrylate)-block-poly(2-hydroxyethyl acrylate) or PSA-PHEA. The strategy involved the chemical derivation of the PHEA block to graft the fluorophore fluorosceinamine (Fl) first. A selective solvent for PSA was then used to induce micelle formation from the diblock with PSA as the corona and the fluorescein-tagged PHEA block as the core. Nanospheres with fluorescent cores were obtained after PHEA core crosslinking with succinyl chloride. Water-dispersible nanospheres were prepared after removing the acetonide groups from the PSA block by hydrolysis to yield poly(glyceryl acrylate). Such nanospheres may find applications in fluorescent in situ hybridization assays.