AIEgen functionalized inorganic–organic hybrid nanomaterials for cancer diagnosis and therapy

Abstract

Theranostics, possessing both imaging and therapeutic functions, has emerged as a promising strategy for the efficient treatment of cancer. Aggregation-induced emission luminogen (AIEgen) functionalized inorganic–organic hybrid nanomaterials have attracted great interest in biomedicine due to their distinct advantages, such as good biocompatibility, excellent fluorescence properties, facile functionalization, etc., which can be used as good platforms for the integration of cancer diagnosis and therapeutics. This review presents AIEgen functionalized inorganic–organic hybrid nanomaterials with multifunctions for imaging and therapy, including fluorescence single modal imaging, fluorescence-magnetic resonance dual modal imaging, fluorescence-computed tomography dual modal imaging, fluorescence imaging-guided chemotherapy, fluorescence imaging-guided photothermal therapy, and fluorescence imaging-guided chemo-photothermal synergistic therapy. Finally, we also provide the recent trends and our personal perspectives on the advantages of AIEgen-functionalized inorganic–organic hybrid nanomaterials in theranostics, and systematically summarize their future challenges in cancer theranostics.