Luminescent conjugates between dinuclear rhenium (i) complexes and peptide nucleic acids (PNA) for cell imaging and DNA targeting.

New luminescent dinuclear rhenium(I) tricarbonyl complex-PNA conjugates have been synthesized through a reliable solid-phase synthetic methodology. Their photophysical properties have been measured. The most luminescent Re-PNA conjugate 7 showed interesting two-photon absorption (TPA) properties, that were exploited for imaging experiments, to demonstrate its easy uptake into living cells.