Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering, Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, Institute for Advanced Study, Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Division of Life Science and State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
National Engineering Research Center for Nanomedicine, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
Adv Mater. 2020 Oct;32(43):e2004685. doi: 10.1002/adma.202004685. Epub 2020 Sep 22.
Near-infrared (NIR) chemiluminescence (CL) emission is highly favorable for deep-tissue imaging, but chemically conjugated NIR CL emitters with the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property for biotechnology are seldom reported. Herein, an AIE-active NIR CL emitter, TBL, is synthesized by conjugating luminol unit with electron-accepting benzothiadiazole and an electron-donating triphenylamine, and subsequently TBL dots are prepared by using F127 as the surfactant. The CL emission of TBL dots can last continuously for over 60 min and can be employed for quantitative (in vitro) and qualitative (in vivo) detection of O . Strikingly, the NIR CL emission can penetrate through tissues with a total thickness of over 3 cm, exhibiting significantly better performance than NIR fluorescence emission and blue CL emission. Moreover, the successful differentiation of tumor and normal tissues by TBL-based CL imaging in vivo also paves the way for CL-guided cancer diagnosis and surgery.
近红外（NIR）化学发光（CL）发射非常适合用于深层组织成像，但具有聚集诱导发射（AIE）性质的化学共轭 NIR CL 发射器在生物技术中很少有报道。在此，通过将发光基团与电子受体苯并噻二唑和电子供体三苯胺连接，合成了一种 AIE 活性的 NIR CL 发射器 TBL，随后使用 F127 作为表面活性剂制备了 TBL 点。TBL 点的 CL 发射可以持续超过 60 分钟，可用于定量（体外）和定性（体内）检测过氧亚硝酸盐（O ）。引人注目的是，NIR CL 发射可以穿透总厚度超过 3 厘米的组织，其性能明显优于近红外荧光发射和蓝色 CL 发射。此外，基于 TBL 的 CL 成像在体内成功地区分了肿瘤和正常组织，也为 CL 引导的癌症诊断和手术铺平了道路。
