Ascorbic acid assisted synthesis of fluorescent PEG for bioimaging application

Highly fluorescent Polyethylene glycol (PEG) was synthesized with the incorporation of ascorbic acid. With a facile synthesis induced by heating, PEG molecule was furnished with its fluorescent property along with its ingrained virtues of being biocompatible and biodegradable. The ascorbic acid modified PEG (FLPEG AA) demonstrated a red shift in the fluorescence and further optimization with the ascorbic acid concentration in the system, highly fluorescent nanoparticles were elicited for the application of cancer cell imaging. In addition, with the preliminary studies, we attempted to deduce the effect of different types of materials such as polymers (PVP) and metals (Gold NPs) towards the fluorescence property of the PEG AA.