A highly water-soluble triblock conjugated polymer for in vivo NIR-II imaging and photothermal therapy of cancer. Issue 22 (18th May 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lu, Xiaomei; Yuan, Pengcheng; Zhang, Wansu; Wu, Qi; Wang, Xiaoxiao; Zhao, Meng; Sun, Pengfei; Huang, Wei; Fan, Quli
• Is Part Of: Polymer chemistry. Volume 9:Issue 22(2018)
• Page Start: 3118
• Page End: 3126
• Publication Date: 2018-05-18
• Subjects: Polymers -- Periodicals; Macromolecules -- Periodicals; Polymerization -- Periodicals; 547.705
• DOI: 10.1039/c8py00215k
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1759-9954

Abstract

Abstract : A highly water-soluble conjugated polymer probe was developed for tumor NIR-II imaging and photothermal therapy. Abstract : Applications of the second near infrared (NIR) optical window (NIR-II, 1000–1700 nm) have received increasing attention with respect to reduced scattering and negligible auto-fluorescence, thus achieving a high signal-to-background ratio for pinpointing tumors compared with NIR-I imaging. Conjugated polymers have been applied in NIR-II imaging for their advantages, such as high molar extinction coefficient, wide emission wavelength, and ease of preparation. However, currently available conjugated polymer NIR-II agents suffer from a lack of water solubility. Hence, a highly water-soluble triblock conjugated polymer (POEGMA- b -PDPP- b -POEGMA) based on diketopyrrolopyrrole was successfully prepared with a high yield. The NIR-II imaging depth of the conjugated polymer was ∼7 mm, which is far beyond conventional NIR-I agents. Furthermore, the fluorescence quantum yield (QY) of POEGMA- b -PDPP- b -POEGMA reached up to 1.0%, which is higher than most reported NIR-II probes. This novel NIR-II conjugated polymer shows improved solubility (>10 mg mL −1 ) and greater dispersion in aqueous solution compared to those conventional conjugated polymers, due to the introduction of the water-soluble polymer POEGMA. With the help of high emission (>1000 nm), POEGMA- b -PDPP- b -POEGMA could efficiently realize the highly penetrable NIR-II imaging of tumors. In addition, POEGMA- b -PDPP- b -POEGMA could be a promising photothermal therapy agent to ablate tumors due to its high photothermal conversion efficiency (52%).