Molecular design of near-infrared fluorescent Pdots for tumor targeting: aggregation-induced emission versus anti-aggregation-caused quenching

Wei-Kai Tsai; Chun-I. Wang; Chia-Hsien Liao; Chun-Nien Yao; Tsai-Jhen Kuo; Ming-Ho Liu; Chao-Ping Hsu; Shu-Yi Lin; Chang-Yi Wu; Joseph R. Pyle; Jixin Chen; Yang-Hsiang Chan

doi:10.1039/C8SC03510E

Molecular design of near-infrared fluorescent Pdots for tumor targeting: aggregation-induced emission versus anti-aggregation-caused quenching†

Wei-Kai Tsai,‡^a Chun-I. Wang,

‡^b Chia-Hsien Liao,^a Chun-Nien Yao,^b Tsai-Jhen Kuo,^a Ming-Ho Liu,^a Chao-Ping Hsu,^c Shu-Yi Lin,^b Chang-Yi Wu,^d Joseph R. Pyle,^e Jixin Chen

^e and Yang-Hsiang Chan

*^f

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Department of Chemistry, National Sun Yat-sen University, 70 Lien Hai Road, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 80424

^b Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Nanomedicine, National Health Research Institutes, 35 Keyan Road, Zhunan, Taiwan 35053

^c Institute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan 115

^d Department of Biological Sciences, National Sun Yat-sen University, 70 Lien Hai Road, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 80424

^e Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701, USA

^f Department of Applied Chemistry, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30050
E-mail: yhchan@nctu.edu.tw

Abstract

Semiconducting polymer dots (Pdots) have recently emerged as a new type of ultrabright fluorescent probe that has been proved to be very useful for biomedical imaging. However, Pdots often suffer from serious fluorescence aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) especially for near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent Pdots. This article compared two strategies to overcome the ACQ effect in near-infrared emissive Pdot systems: aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and anti-aggregation-caused quenching (anti-ACQ). The results show that the anti-ACQ platform outperforms the AIE system. The fluorescence quantum yield of anti-ACQ-based Pdots can be over 50% and the average per-particle brightness of the Pdots is about 5 times higher than that of the commercially available quantum dots. To help understand why the monomer conformations could greatly affect the optical properties of Pdots, molecular dynamics simulations were performed for the first time in such complicated Pdot systems. To demonstrate applications for in vivo fluorescence imaging, both microangiography imaging on living zebrafish embryos and specific tumor targeting on mice were performed. We anticipate that these studies will pave the way for the design of new highly fluorescent Pdot systems.

This article is part of the themed collections: Near-infrared (NIR) luminescent probes for bioimaging and biosensing, Most popular 2019-2020 analytical chemistry articles, 20th Anniversary of Aggregation-Induced Emission and Most popular 2018-2019 analytical chemistry articles

Chemical Science

Molecular design of near-infrared fluorescent Pdots for tumor targeting: aggregation-induced emission versus anti-aggregation-caused quenching†

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Molecular design of near-infrared fluorescent Pdots for tumor targeting: aggregation-induced emission versus anti-aggregation-caused quenching

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