Clustering-Triggered Emission from Natural Products: Gelatin and Its Multifunctional Applications

It is well-known that nontraditional nonaromatic proteins have no significant conjugation. Recently, they have received more and more attention due to their unique intrinsic emission and potential application prospects. It is noteworthy that the clustering-triggered emission (CTE) mechanism was reported to explain the emission of gelatin. In this work, gelatin, a natural aggregation-induced emission (AIE) with a CTE mechanism characterized by good water solubility and excellent biocompatibility was discovered. Since gelatin has emission with different colors at diverse excitation wavelengths, including blue, green, and red, it has multiple imaging capabilities in the field of biomedicine. Moreover, gelatin has a quenching effect on Fe³⁺, and it can be regarded as a biosensor to detect Fe³⁺ concentration in the range of the normal human body serum. Gelatin is a new AIE material with a CTE mechanism that will have potential practical application prospects.