Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.
Opt Lett. 2010 Nov 15;35(22):3751-3. doi: 10.1364/OL.35.003751.
Plasmonic metal nanoparticles are used in photoacoustic imaging as contrast agents because of their resonant optical absorption properties in the visible and near-IR regions. However, the nanoparticles could accumulate and result in long-term toxicity in vivo, because they are generally not biodegradable. Recently, biodegradable plasmonic gold nanoclusters, consisting of sub-5 nm primary gold nanoparticles and biodegradable polymer stabilizer, were introduced. In this Letter, we demonstrate the feasibility of biodegradable nanoclusters as a photoacoustic contrast agent. We performed photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging of a tissue-mimicking phantom with inclusions containing nanoclusters at various concentrations. The results indicate that the biodegradable gold nanoclusters can be used as effective contrast agents in photoacoustic imaging.
等离子体金属纳米粒子由于其在可见光和近红外区域的共振光学吸收特性，被用于光声成象作为对比剂。然而，由于它们通常不可生物降解，纳米粒子可能会在体内积累并导致长期毒性。最近，引入了由亚 5nm 初级金纳米粒子和可生物降解聚合物稳定剂组成的可生物降解等离子体金纳米簇。在这封信中，我们证明了可生物降解纳米簇作为光声对比剂的可行性。我们对含有不同浓度纳米簇的组织模拟体进行了光声和超声成像。结果表明，可生物降解的金纳米簇可用作光声成象中的有效对比剂。
