A generic approach towards afterglow luminescent nanoparticles for ultrasensitive in vivo imaging

• Main Authors: Jiang, Yuyan, Huang, Jiaguo, Zhen, Xu, Zeng, Ziling, Li, Jingchao, Xie, Chen, Miao, Qingqing, Chen, Jie, Chen, Peng, Pu, Kanyi
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Nanoparticles; Engineering::Chemical engineering; Polymer
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/86574; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/49860
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Afterglow imaging with long-lasting luminescence after cessation of light excitation provides opportunities for ultrasensitive molecular imaging; however, the lack of biologically compatible afterglow agents has impeded exploitation in clinical settings. This study presents a generic approach to transforming ordinary optical agents (including fluorescent polymers, dyes, and inorganic semiconductors) into afterglow luminescent nanoparticles (ALNPs). This approach integrates a cascade photoreaction into a single-particle entity, enabling ALNPs to chemically store photoenergy and spontaneously decay it in an energy-relay process. Not only can the afterglow profiles of ALNPs be finetuned to afford emission from visible to near-infrared (NIR) region, but also their intensities can be predicted by a mathematical model. The representative NIR ALNPs permit rapid detection of tumors in living mice with a signal-to-background ratio that is more than three orders of magnitude higher than that of NIR fluorescence. The biodegradability of the ALNPs further heightens their potential for ultrasensitive in vivo imaging.