Issue 8, 2018

Ratiometric optical nanoprobes enable accurate molecular detection and imaging

Abstract

Exploring and understanding biological and pathological changes are of great significance for early diagnosis and therapy of diseases. Optical sensing and imaging approaches have experienced major progress in this field. Particularly, an emergence of various functional optical nanoprobes has provided enhanced sensitivity, specificity, targeting ability, as well as multiplexing and multimodal capabilities due to improvements in their intrinsic physicochemical and optical properties. However, one of the biggest challenges of conventional optical nanoprobes is their absolute intensity-dependent signal readout, which causes inaccurate sensing and imaging results due to the presence of various analyte-independent factors that can cause fluctuations in their absolute signal intensity. Ratiometric measurements provide built-in self-calibration for signal correction, enabling more sensitive and reliable detection. Optimizing nanoprobe designs with ratiometric strategies can surmount many of the limitations encountered by traditional optical nanoprobes. This review first elaborates upon existing optical nanoprobes that exploit ratiometric measurements for improved sensing and imaging, including fluorescence, surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), and photoacoustic nanoprobes. Next, a thorough discussion is provided on design strategies for these nanoprobes, and their potential biomedical applications for targeting specific biomolecule populations (e.g. cancer biomarkers and small molecules with physiological relevance), for imaging the tumor microenvironment (e.g. pH, reactive oxygen species, hypoxia, enzyme and metal ions), as well as for intraoperative image guidance of tumor-resection procedures.

Graphical abstract: Ratiometric optical nanoprobes enable accurate molecular detection and imaging

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
26 Nov. 2017
First published
23 Marts 2018

Chem. Soc. Rev., 2018,47, 2873-2920

Ratiometric optical nanoprobes enable accurate molecular detection and imaging

X. Huang, J. Song, B. C. Yung, X. Huang, Y. Xiong and X. Chen, Chem. Soc. Rev., 2018, 47, 2873 DOI: 10.1039/C7CS00612H

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