In recent years

water-soluble aggregation-induced emission (AIE) polymer nanomaterials

as a new kind of intelligent materials

have great advantages in the fields of life science research because of their unique optical properties

environmental stimulus response and excellent biocompatibility. In this study

a new atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) initiator (TPE-BMP) with aggregation induced luminescence (AIE) properties was synthesized

and then the amphiphilic polymer TPE-PAA was successfully prepared by a method of ATRP active polymerization. Then

the pH responsive and AIE-active spherical nanoparticles TPE-PAA NP with a particle size of about 200nm were formed by a selfassembling process. The results show that TPE-PAA NP possesses excellent water solubility

good dispersion

dimensional stability and excellent AIE luminescence characteristics

and its solution fluorescence shows rapid sensitivity to environmental pH. More importantly

the fluorescent signals were significantly strong in

HeLa

cells after cells were incubated with TPE-PAA for 24h based on the characteristic of AIE fluorescence and low cytotoxicity. TPE-PAA NP could be internalized by the cancer cells and effectively track the

HeLa

cells for as long as 9 passages. So TPE-PAA NP was expected to be used as a fluorescent tracer probe material for living cells.