Tianjin Key Laboratory of Drug Targeting and Bioimaging, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Organic Solar Cells and Photochemical Conversion, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China.
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Weihai 264209, China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 May 5;13(17):19668-19678. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c02260. Epub 2021 Apr 25.
Phototheranostics represents a promising direction for modern precision medicine, which has recently received considerable attention for cancer research. The ingenious integration of all phototheranostic modalities in a single molecule with precise spatial colocalization is a tremendously challenging task, which mainly arises from the complexity of molecular design and energy dissipation. Reports on a single molecular one-for-all theranostic agent are still very rare. Herein, we designed two novel aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active fluorogens (AIEgens, named DPMD and TPMD) with a cross-shaped donor-acceptor structure via a facile synthetic method and constructed versatile nanoparticles (NPs) by encapsulating AIEgen with an amphiphilic polymer. The AIEgen TPMD with a twisted structure, high donor-acceptor (D-A) strength, small singlet-triplet energy gap, and abundant intramolecular rotators and vibrators was selected as an ideal candidate for balancing and utilizing the radiative and nonradiative energy dissipations. Notably, TPMD NPs simultaneously possess adequate near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence emission at 821 nm for fluorescence imaging, effective reactive oxygen species generation for photodynamic therapy (PDT), and outstanding photothermal effect for photoacoustic imaging, photothermal imaging, and photothermal therapy (PTT), which demonstrates the superior potential of AIE NPs in multimodal imaging-guided synergistic PDT/PTT therapy.
光热治疗代表了现代精准医学的一个有前途的方向，最近在癌症研究中受到了相当多的关注。将所有光热治疗模式巧妙地整合到一个具有精确空间共定位的单一分子中，是一项极具挑战性的任务，主要源于分子设计和能量耗散的复杂性。关于单一分子多模式治疗试剂的报道仍然非常罕见。在此，我们通过简便的合成方法设计了两个具有十字形给体-受体结构的新型聚集诱导发射（AIE）活性荧光团（AIEgens，分别命名为 DPMD 和 TPMD），并通过将 AIEgen 包封在两亲性聚合物中构建了多功能纳米颗粒（NPs）。具有扭曲结构、高给体-受体（D-A）强度、小的单重态-三重态能量间隙以及丰富的分子内旋转体和振动体的 AIEgen TPMD 被选为平衡和利用辐射和非辐射能量耗散的理想候选物。值得注意的是，TPMD NPs 同时具有足够的近红外（NIR）荧光发射（821nm），可用于荧光成像、用于光动力治疗（PDT）的有效活性氧（ROS）生成以及用于光声成像、光热成像和光热治疗（PTT）的出色光热效应，这表明 AIE NPs 在多模式成像引导协同 PDT/PTT 治疗方面具有优异的潜力。
