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AIEgen doped fluorescent nanodots (AIEdots) have attracted lots of attention, due to their superior characteristics as fluorescent probes, such as excellent photostability, large Stokes shift, high brightness and tunable emission. Unfortunately, most of the currently available AIEdots exhibit broad emission bandwidth, which limits their applications in multiplexed fluorescence imaging and detection. In this work, the strategy of designing and fabricating narrow emissive AIEdots (NE-AIEdots) with tunable wavelengths was presented by constructing a light-harvesting system with high energy transfer efficiency. Efficient intra-particle energy transfer from highly doped AIEgens, serving as the light-harvesting antenna, to the lightly doped narrow emissive fluorophore, resulted in high brightness and narrow emission. The emission band of NE-AIEdots with the full-width-at-half-maximum varied from 18 to 36 nm was 3-6.3 times narrower than that of traditional AIEdots. The single-particle brightness of NE-AIEdots was over 5-times that of commercial quantum dots under the same excitation and collection conditions. Taking advantage of the superior performance of these NE-AIEdots, multiplexed fluorescence imaging of lymph nodes in living mice was realized, which supported the future applications of NE-AIEdots for in vivo multiplexed labeling and clinical surgery., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts to declare., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

Objective: Inbred strains of mice offer promising models for understanding the genetic basis of age-related hearing loss (AHL). NOD/LtJ, A/J, DBA/2J and C57BL/6J mice are classical models of age-related hearing loss and exhibit early onset of pathology of AHL. This study was carried out to characterize the early pathology of cochlear stereocilia in the four mouse strains with age-related hearing loss., Methods: The structural features of stereocilia in NOD/LtJ, A/J, DBA/2J and C57BL/6J mice were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) at age 2, 4, 6 or 8, and 10 or 12 weeks. Meanwhile, auditory-evoked brainstem response (ABR) and distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) amplitudes of the mice were measured at various intervals (3, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 weeks of age)., Results: The ABR thresholds in NOD/LtJ, A/J and DBA/2J mice increased with age from 3 to 12 weeks. DPOAE amplitudes in NOD/LtJ, A/J, DBA/2J mice were very low at 4 weeks and became negative at 8 weeks at f2 frequency of 17 672 Hz. In addition to the progressive hearing loss, the four mouse strains displayed early onset (at 2 weeks of age) and progressive degeneration of stereocilia in hair cells., Conclusion: Early degeneration of stereocilia contributes to the functional impairment of hair cells and hearing loss in NOD/LtJ, A/J, DBA/2J and C57BL/6J mice.