Department of Chemistry, Nanchang University, 999 Xuefu Avenue, Nanchang 330031, China.
Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 56 Yangming Road, Nanchang, Jiangxi 330006, China.
Mater Sci Eng C Mater Biol Appl. 2020 Mar;108:110424. doi: 10.1016/j.msec.2019.110424. Epub 2019 Nov 13.
Fluorescent hydroxyapatite (HAp) nanoparticles have received significant attention in biomedical fields due to their outstanding advantages, such as low immunogenicity, excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability. However, fluorescent HAp nanoparticles with well controlled size and morphology are coated with hydrophobic molecules and their biomedical applications are largely restricted by their poor dispersibility in physiological solutions. Therefore, surface modification of these hydrophobic fluorescent HAp nanoparticles to render them water dispersibility is of utmost importance for biomedical applications. In this work, we reported for the first time for preparation of water-dispersible hydrophilic fluorescent Eu-doped HAp nanoparticles (named as HAp-PEOTx) through the cationic ring-opening polymerization using hydrophilic and biocompatible 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline (EOTx) as the monomer. The characterization techniques, such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have been used to characterize these samples. Results confirmed that we could successfully obtain the hydrophilic fluorescent HAp-PEOTx composites through the strategy described above. These fluorescent HAp-PEOTx composites display great water dispersibility, unique fluorescent properties and excellent biocompatibility, making them promising for in vitro bioimaging applications.
荧光羟基磷灰石（HAp）纳米粒子由于其低免疫原性、优异的生物相容性和可生物降解性等突出优点，在生物医学领域受到了广泛关注。然而，具有良好控制尺寸和形态的荧光 HAp 纳米粒子被疏水分子所包覆，其在生理溶液中的分散性较差，极大地限制了它们的生物医学应用。因此，对这些疏水性荧光 HAp 纳米粒子进行表面修饰以赋予其水分散性对于生物医学应用至关重要。在本工作中，我们首次通过使用亲水性和生物相容性的 2-乙基-2-恶唑啉（EOTx）作为单体的阳离子开环聚合，制备了水分散性的亲水性荧光 Eu 掺杂 HAp 纳米粒子（命名为 HAp-PEOTx）。我们使用了诸如核磁共振（NMR）光谱、透射电子显微镜（TEM）和 X 射线光电子能谱（XPS）等表征技术来对这些样品进行了表征。结果证实，我们可以通过上述策略成功获得亲水性荧光 HAp-PEOTx 复合材料。这些荧光 HAp-PEOTx 复合材料具有良好的水分散性、独特的荧光性质和优异的生物相容性，使其有望用于体外生物成像应用。
