Baghdasaryan Ani, Dai Hongjie
Department of Chemistry and Bio-X, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, United States.
Department of Chemistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, P. R. China.
Chem Rev. 2025 Jun 11;125(11):5195-5227. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.4c00835. Epub 2025 May 28.
Small thiolate-protected gold molecular clusters have gained significant interest in research due to their unique size-dependent properties. Their molecular to nanoscale sizes lead to distinctive quantum confinement effects, resulting in a discrete electronic energy band gap structure and molecule-like properties, including HOMO-LUMO electronic transitions, enhanced photoluminescence, and intrinsic magnetism and chirality. Near-infrared II (NIR-II, 1000-3000 nm) emissive gold clusters have emerged as a fascinating class of nanomaterials that are well-suited for biomedical applications. The unique combination of stability, biocompatibility, and tunable emission properties position them as valuable tools for high-resolution and deep-tissue imaging, with potential real-world applications ranging from disease diagnostics and prognosis to therapeutics. In this review, we focus on the NIR-II photoluminescence properties of gold molecular clusters for preclinical in vivo NIR-II imaging of vasculature, brain, kidney, liver, and gastrointestinal organs, and molecular targeted tumor imaging and theranostic treatment. The imaging capabilities combined with fast excretion and a high safety profile make molecular gold clusters highly promising for clinical translation.
小型硫醇保护的金分子簇因其独特的尺寸依赖性性质而在研究中引起了极大的关注。它们从分子到纳米尺度的尺寸导致了独特的量子限制效应，产生了离散的电子能带隙结构以及类似分子的性质，包括最高占据分子轨道-最低未占据分子轨道（HOMO-LUMO）电子跃迁、增强的光致发光以及固有磁性和手性。近红外二区（NIR-II，1000 - 3000 nm）发射的金簇已成为一类引人入胜的纳米材料，非常适合生物医学应用。稳定性、生物相容性和可调发射特性的独特组合使它们成为高分辨率和深部组织成像的有价值工具，在从疾病诊断、预后到治疗等实际应用中具有潜力。在本综述中，我们重点关注金分子簇的近红外二区光致发光特性，用于血管、脑、肾、肝和胃肠道器官的临床前体内近红外二区成像，以及分子靶向肿瘤成像和诊疗治疗。成像能力与快速排泄和高安全性相结合，使得分子金簇在临床转化方面极具前景。
