A Freezing-Induced Turn-On Imaging Modality for Real-Time Monitoring of Cancer Cells in Cryosurgery

Cryosurgery has attracted much attention for the treatment of tumors owing to its clear advantages. However, determining the volume of frozen tissues in real-time remains a challenge, which greatly lowers the therapeutic efficacy of cryosurgery and hinders its broad application for the treatment of cancers. Herein, we report a freezing-induced turn-on strategy for the selective real-time imaging of frozen cancer cells. As a type of aggregation-induced emission (AIE) fluorogen, TABD-Py molecules interact specifically with ice crystals and form aggregates at the ice/water interface. Consequently, bright fluorescent emission appears upon freezing. TABD-Py molecules are enriched mostly in the cancer cells and exhibit high biocompatibility as well as low cytotoxicity; therefore, a freezing-induced turn-on imaging modality for cryosurgery is developed, which will certainly maximize the therapeutic efficacy of cryosurgery in treating tumors.