Design of One-for-All Near-Infrared Aggregation-Induced Emission Nanoaggregates for Boosting Theranostic Efficacy.

ACS Nano

Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, Division of Life Science and State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong

Published: March 2023


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Article Abstract

Fluorescence-guided phototherapy, including photodynamic and photothermal therapy, is considered an emerging noninvasive strategy for cancer treatments. Organic molecules are promising theranostic agents because of their facile construction, simple modification, and good biocompatibility. Organic systems that integrated multifunctionalities in a single component and achieved high efficiency in both imaging and therapies are rarely reported as the inherently competitive energy relaxation pathways are hard to modulate, and fluorescence quenching occurs upon molecular aggregation. Herein, a versatile theranostic platform with near-infrared emission, high fluorescence quantum yield, robust reactive oxygen species production, and excellent photothermal conversion efficiency was developed based on an aggregation-induced emission luminogen, namely, TPA-TBT. studies revealed that the TPA-TBT nanoaggregates exhibit outstanding photodynamic and photothermal therapy efficacy to ablate tumors inoculated in a mouse model. This work offers a design strategy to develop one-for-all cancer theranostic agents by modulating and utilizing the relaxation energy of excitons in full.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.2c10661DOI Listing

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