TY - JOUR
T1 - pH-sensitive and biodegradable charge-transfer nanocomplex for second near-infrared photoacoustic tumor imaging
AU - Wang, Zhimin
AU - Upputuri, Paul Kumar
AU - Zhen, Xu
AU - Zhang, Ruochong
AU - Jiang, Yuyan
AU - Ai, Xiangzhao
AU - Zhang, Zhijun
AU - Hu, Ming
AU - Meng, Zhenyu
AU - Lu, Yunpeng
AU - Zheng, Yuanjing
AU - Pu, Kanyi
AU - Pramanik, Manojit
AU - Xing, Bengang
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2019/1/1
Y1 - 2019/1/1
N2 - The emerging technique of photoacoustic imaging, especially in the near infra-red (NIR) window, permits high resolution, deep-penetration, clinically reliable sensing. However, few contrast agents are available that can specifically respond to intricate biological environments, and which are biodegradable and biocompatible. Herein, we introduce a new class of pH-sensitive organic photoacoustic contrast agent that operates in the second NIR window (NIR-II, 960–1,700 nm), which is derived from the self-assembled charge-transfer nanocomplex (CTN) by 3,3’,5,5’-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) and its dication structure (TMB++). The unique NIR-II-responsive CTN can specifically respond to pH change in the physiological range and allows noninvasive and sensitive visualization of the tumor acidic microenvironment (e.g. at pH 5) in mice with higher signal-to-noise ratio. The CTN is biodegradable under physiological conditions (e.g. pH 7.4), which alleviates the biosafety concern of nanoparticle accumulation in vivo. These results clearly show the potential of the TMB/TMB++-based CTN as a promising pH-activated and biodegradable molecular probe for specific tumor photoacoustic imaging in the NIR-II region.
AB - The emerging technique of photoacoustic imaging, especially in the near infra-red (NIR) window, permits high resolution, deep-penetration, clinically reliable sensing. However, few contrast agents are available that can specifically respond to intricate biological environments, and which are biodegradable and biocompatible. Herein, we introduce a new class of pH-sensitive organic photoacoustic contrast agent that operates in the second NIR window (NIR-II, 960–1,700 nm), which is derived from the self-assembled charge-transfer nanocomplex (CTN) by 3,3’,5,5’-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) and its dication structure (TMB++). The unique NIR-II-responsive CTN can specifically respond to pH change in the physiological range and allows noninvasive and sensitive visualization of the tumor acidic microenvironment (e.g. at pH 5) in mice with higher signal-to-noise ratio. The CTN is biodegradable under physiological conditions (e.g. pH 7.4), which alleviates the biosafety concern of nanoparticle accumulation in vivo. These results clearly show the potential of the TMB/TMB++-based CTN as a promising pH-activated and biodegradable molecular probe for specific tumor photoacoustic imaging in the NIR-II region.
KW - biodegradable
KW - charge-transfer nanocomplex
KW - pH-sensitive
KW - photoacoustic imaging
KW - second near-infrared window
KW - tumor acidic microenvironment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052699036&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s12274-018-2175-9
DO - 10.1007/s12274-018-2175-9
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85052699036
SN - 1998-0124
VL - 12
SP - 49
EP - 55
JO - Nano Research
JF - Nano Research
IS - 1
ER -