Tunable AIE-Active Assemblies Inducing Bacterial Agglutination toward Noninvasive Photodynamic Antiseptic

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) photosensitizer assemblies capable of inducing bacterial agglutination were fabricated to achieve a high PDT efficacy in a noninvasive manner. An AIE-active molecule CTRA was designed to bear the donor and acceptor subunits for singlet oxygen (¹O₂) generation. An amphiphile DGal with a β-d-galactose headgroup was introduced to coassemble for the photosensitizer assemblies bearing glycosyls for bacteria capture as well as to tune the ¹O₂ generation of CTRA. At the optimal combination of two components, a highly efficient noninvasive PDT activity with nearly 100% effectiveness against S. aureus was realized.