Tavakkoli Yaraki Mohammad, Wu Min, Middha Eshu, Wu Wenbo, Daqiqeh Rezaei Soroosh, Liu Bin, Tan Yen Nee
Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, 138634, Singapore.
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore, 117585, Singapore.
Nanomicro Lett. 2021 Jan 16;13(1):58. doi: 10.1007/s40820-020-00583-2.
Dual-functional aggregation-induced photosensitizers (AIE-PSs) with singlet oxygen generation (SOG) ability and bright fluorescence in aggregated state have received much attention in image-guided photodynamic therapy (PDT). However, designing an AIE-PS with both high SOG and intense fluorescence via molecular design is still challenging. In this work, we report a new nanohybrid consisting of gold nanostar (AuNS) and AIE-PS dots with enhanced fluorescence and photosensitization for theranostic applications. The spectral overlap between the extinction of AuNS and fluorescence emission of AIE-PS dots (665 nm) is carefully selected using five different AuNSs with distinct localized surface plasmon (LSPR) peaks. Results show that all the AuNSs can enhance the O production of AIE-PS dots, among which the AuNS with LSPR peak at 585 nm exhibited the highest O enhancement factor of 15-fold with increased fluorescence brightness. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest enhancement factor reported for the metal-enhanced singlet oxygen generation systems. The Au585@AIE-PS nanodots were applied for simultaneous fluorescence imaging and photodynamic ablation of HeLa cancer cells with strongly enhanced PDT efficiency in vitro. This study provides a better understanding of the metal-enhanced AIE-PS nanohybrid systems, opening up new avenue towards advanced image-guided PDT with greatly improved efficacy.
具有单线态氧生成（SOG）能力且在聚集态下具有明亮荧光的双功能聚集诱导光敏剂（AIE-PSs）在图像引导光动力疗法（PDT）中备受关注。然而，通过分子设计来构建同时具有高SOG和强荧光的AIE-PS仍然具有挑战性。在这项工作中，我们报道了一种由金纳米星（AuNS）和AIE-PS点组成的新型纳米杂化物，其具有增强的荧光和光致敏性，可用于诊疗应用。使用具有不同局域表面等离子体共振（LSPR）峰的五种不同AuNS，精心选择了AuNS的消光与AIE-PS点（665 nm）的荧光发射之间的光谱重叠。结果表明，所有AuNS都能增强AIE-PS点的单线态氧生成，其中LSPR峰位于585 nm的AuNS表现出最高的单线态氧增强因子，为15倍，同时荧光亮度增加。据我们所知，这是金属增强单线态氧生成系统报道的最高增强因子。Au585@AIE-PS纳米点被用于HeLa癌细胞的同步荧光成像和光动力消融，在体外具有显著增强的PDT效率。这项研究有助于更好地理解金属增强的AIE-PS纳米杂化系统，为具有大大提高疗效的先进图像引导PDT开辟了新途径。
