NIR-II emissive AIEgen photosensitizers enable ultrasensitive imaging-guided surgery and phototherapy to fully inhibit orthotopic hepatic tumors

Ruizhen Jia,Wenjing Sun,Shuyu Xu,Chenlu Wang,Jibin Song,Han Xu,Yu Zhou,Jinpeng Jing,Lichao Su,Xiaoyuan Chen,Hongmin Chen

doi:10.1186/s12951-021-01168-w

Abstract

Accurate diagnosis and effective treatment of primary liver tumors are of great significance, and optical imaging has been widely employed in clinical imaging-guided surgery for liver tumors. The second near-infrared window (NIR-II) emissive AIEgen photosensitizers have attracted a lot of attention with higher-resolution bioimaging and deeper penetration. NIR-II aggregation-induced emission-based luminogen (AIEgen) photosensitizers have better phototherapeutic effects and accuracy of the image-guided surgery/phototherapy. Herein, an NIR-II AIEgen phototheranostic dot was proposed for NIR-II imaging-guided resection surgery and phototherapy for orthotopic hepatic tumors. Compared with indocyanine green (ICG), the AIEgen dots showed bright and sharp NIR-II emission at 1250 nm, which extended to 1600 nm with high photostability. Moreover, the AIEgen dots efficiently generated reactive oxygen species (ROS) for photodynamic therapy. Investigations of orthotopic liver tumors in vitro and in vivo demonstrated that AIEgen dots could be employed both for imaging-guided tumor surgery of early-stage tumors and for ‘downstaging’ intention to reduce the size. Moreover, the therapeutic strategy induced complete inhibition of orthotopic tumors without recurrence and with few side effects.Graphical

Highlights

Liver cancer is globally the seventh most frequent cancer and the third leading cause of cancer-related death [1]
Recent studies have shown that NIR-II agents could achieve both fluorescence and photothermal (PTT) or photodynamic (PDT) processes, Scheme 1 Schematic illustration of NIR-II emissive aggregation-induced emission-based luminogen (AIEgen) photosensitizer PTZ-TQ that enables ultrasensitive imaging-guided surgery and phototherapy to fully inhibit orthotopic hepatic tumors thereby boosting NIR-II imaging-guided surgery to achieve optimal effect [48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56]
The donor– acceptor–donor (D–A–D) structure was confirmed by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and ESI–MS analysis

Summary

Graphical Abstract

Introduction Liver cancer is globally the seventh most frequent cancer and the third leading cause of cancer-related death [1]. Noninvasive, and radiation-free technology, the first near-infrared window (NIR-I) fluorescence imaging has been widely employed in clinical imagingguided surgery for liver tumors and retinal angiography [6, 7]. Recent studies have shown that NIR-II agents could achieve both fluorescence and photothermal (PTT) or photodynamic (PDT) processes, Scheme 1 Schematic illustration of NIR-II emissive AIEgen photosensitizer PTZ-TQ that enables ultrasensitive imaging-guided surgery and phototherapy to fully inhibit orthotopic hepatic tumors thereby boosting NIR-II imaging-guided surgery to achieve optimal effect [48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56]. It is urgent to design and synthesize NIR-II emissive agents with both fluorescence imaging and phototherapeutic ability in their aggregation state. We investigated the efficacy of imagingguided surgical resection of orthotopic early-stage liver tumor and ‘downstaging’ intention of large HCC

Results and discussion

Conclusions

Global cancer statistics 2020