The high biocompatibility and excellent photostability of Au nanoclusters (AuNCs) make them stand out in the bioimaging of nanoparticles. However, the low quantum yield and inferior targeting ability of water-soluble AuNCs greatly limit their biological applications. In this study, we designed and synthesized multifunctional host polymers PolySC 4 AP and FGGC@AuNCs to fabricate PolySC 4 AP/FGGC@AuNC assemblies via a host-guest interaction based on SC 4 (sulfonatocalix[4]arene) and positively charged FGGC ligands (phenylalanine-glycine-glycine-cysteine). Owing to the host-guest assembly strategy and rigid polymer matrix, the quantum yield of FGGC@AuNCs was significantly promoted from 7.0 to 35.3%, accompanied by considerable morphological changes of FGGC@AuNCs. Moreover, PolySC 4 AP/FGGC@AuNCs could monitor the location of mitochondria along with R (Pearson's correlation coefficients) value for the co-localization as high as 0.9605, which provided a novel strategy for targeted bioimaging with luminophore.
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