Renal-clearable molecular semiconductor for second near-infrared fluorescence imaging of kidney dysfunction

• Main Authors: Li, Jingchao, Huang, Jiaguo, Fan, Quli, Xie, Chen, Zhang, Xiaodong, Jiang, Yuyan, Pu, Kanyi
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Real-time Imaging; Kidney Dysfunction; Engineering::Chemical engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/83301; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/50094
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Real-time imaging of kidney function is important to assess the nephrotoxicity of drugs and monitor the progression of renal diseases; however, it remains challenging because of the lack of optical agents with high renal clearance and high signal-tobackground ratio (SBR). Herein, a second near-infrared (NIR-II) fluorescent molecular semiconductor (CDIR2) is synthesized for realtime imaging of kidney dysfunction in living mice. CDIR2 not only has a high renal clearance efficiency (~90% injection dosage at 24 h postinjection), but also solely undergoes glomerular filtration into urine without being reabsorbed and secreted in renal tubules. Such a unidirectional renal clearance pathway of CDIR2 permits real-time monitoring of kidney dysfunction in living mice upon nephrotoxic exposure. Thus, this study not only introduces a molecular renal probe but also provides useful molecular guidelines to increase the renal clearance efficiency of NIR-II fluorescent agents.