Issue 42, 2018

Protein-modified conjugated polymer nanoparticles with strong near-infrared absorption: a novel nanoplatform to design multifunctional nanoprobes for dual-modal photoacoustic and fluorescence imaging

Abstract

Engineering conjugated polymer nanoparticles (CPNs) with an easily-modified surface is essential to construct multifunctional nanoprobes as contrast agents for dual-modal photoacoustic (PA) and fluorescence imaging, which can take advantages of the complementary information from a single modality. In this study, an abundant protein with plenty of functional groups was introduced for the first time to produce easily-modified CPNs, leading to a robust nanoplatform to engineer PA-based multifunctional nanoprobes due to their strong optical absorption in the near-infrared region. Meanwhile, the bovine serum albumin (BSA)-modified CPNs were further engineered by introducing gold clusters in situ, which can serve as fluorescent nanoprobes for dual-modal molecular imaging. In particular, the developed nanoplatform exhibited superior stability and excellent biocompatibility, making it an ideal candidate for various cancer-theranostics applications. More importantly, our imaging results demonstrated that the BSA-modified CPNs were excellent candidates to design PA-based contrast agents for multimodal imaging using the function of the protein. In addition, other functional blocks can also be added to the nanoplatform based on its easily-modified surface, making it a general method for the construction of multifunctional nanoprobes for disease theranostics.

Graphical abstract: Protein-modified conjugated polymer nanoparticles with strong near-infrared absorption: a novel nanoplatform to design multifunctional nanoprobes for dual-modal photoacoustic and fluorescence imaging

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
01 avq 2018
Accepted
18 sen 2018
First published
26 sen 2018

Nanoscale, 2018,10, 19742-19748

Protein-modified conjugated polymer nanoparticles with strong near-infrared absorption: a novel nanoplatform to design multifunctional nanoprobes for dual-modal photoacoustic and fluorescence imaging

D. Gao, P. Zhang, Y. Liu, Z. Sheng, H. Chen and Z. Yuan, Nanoscale, 2018, 10, 19742 DOI: 10.1039/C8NR06197A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements