A near-infrared bioprobe with aggregation-induced emission feature for in vitro photodynamic therapy

Abstract

Fluorescence imaging-guided photodynamic therapy (PDT) plays an important role in diagnosis and therapeutics. However, conventional photosensitizers (e.g. porphyrins and inorganic nanomaterials) often suffer from suppressed emission and decreased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production due to aggregates formation. In this study, a novel facile near-infrared aggregation-induced emission (AIE) fluorescent bioprobe (TPA-diCN-F127 NPs) with AIE molecules (TPA-diCN) as core and Pluronic F127 as shell was prepared. The structure and photophysical properties of TPA-diCN were verified by standard spectroscopic methods. Further experiments demonstrated that TPA-diCN-F127 NPs possess many desirable characteristics including near-infrared emission (maximum emission at 672 nm), a large Stokes shift (224 nm), good dispersibility, superior photosensitization efficiency and satisfactory biocompatibility. More importantly, upon white light irradiation, efficient in vitro cancer cells damage are demonstrated, suggesting potential capability of TPA-diCN-F127 NPs in imaging-guided PDT.