A Tumor‐Microenvironment‐Responsive Lanthanide–Cyanine FRET Sensor for NIR‐II Luminescence‐Lifetime In Situ Imaging of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract

Deep tissue imaging in the second near‐infrared (NIR‐II) window holds great promise for widespread fundamental research. However, inhomogeneous signal attenuation due to tissue absorption and scattering hampers its application for accurate in vivo biosensing. Here, lifetime‐based in situ hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) detection in NIR‐II region is presented using a tumor‐microenvironment (peroxynitrite, ONOO−)‐responsive lanthanide–cyanine Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) nanosensor. A specially designed ONOO−‐responsive NIR‐II dye, MY‐1057, is synthesized as the FRET acceptor. Robust lifetime sensing is demonstrated to be independent of tissue penetration depth. Tumor lesions are accurately distinguished from normal tissue due to the recovery lifetime. Magnetic resonance imaging and liver dissection results illustrate the reliability of lifetime‐based detection in single and multiple HCC models. Moreover, the ONOO− amount can be calculated according to the standard curve.

Activatable fluorescence sensors for in vivo bio-detection in the second near-infrared window

“…7c and d). 80 Thanks to the high stability and reliability, uorescence lifetime imaging provides researchers a potential and powerful tool for qualitative and quantitative imaging and detection of reactive bio-analytes. 84,[86][87][88] Technically, the pulsed excitation and temporal domain used during uorescence lifetime imaging remove the auto-uorescence noise, giving a nonbackground imaging result, which extremely increases the detection sensitivity.…”

Recent advances in design of lanthanide-containing NIR-II luminescent nanoprobes

“…Benefiting from the dye-sensitized process and increased absorption cross section, the excitation spectral response was expanded to a broad range of 720–1000 nm. Inspired by this work, a series of organic dyes were adopted to sensitize Ln 3+ NIR luminescence, including indocyanine green ( Wang et al., 2018a ), MY-1057 ( Zhao et al., 2020 ), and IR-1061 ( Hazra et al., 2018 ).…”

“…Besides manipulating core-shell structures of the Ln 3+ -doped NPs, the incorporation of NIR-II dye with Ln 3+ -doped NPs may provide an efficient ET pathway to tune PL lifetime of Ln 3+ . Zhao et al. (2020) reported a Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) nanoprobe for quantitative luminescence-lifetime biosensing by employing the NIR-II dye MY-1057 encapsulated β-NaYF 4 @NaYF 4 :Nd 3+ NPs ( Figure 6 D).…”

Host Differential Sensitization toward Color/Lifetime‐Tuned Lanthanide Coordination Polymers for Optical Multiplexing

“…[1][2][3][4] Thee ver-increasing demand for the superior multiplexing mode,i.e.the stable and high-degree multiplexing in both spatial and temporal domains,c alls for luminescent materials with small size in nano/micrometer range,e xcellent physicochemical stability, tunable emission with sharp peaks,tunable lifetime in microsecond (ms) range,and high luminous efficiency. [5][6][7] Hitherto, ar ange of promising materials including the lanthanidedoped upconversion nanoparticles, [8][9][10] inorganic perovskite quantum dots (QDs), [11,12] and inorganic-organic hybrid composites [13][14][15][16] have been rationally designed and played the significant roles in promoting the multiplexing technologies.H owever,t hese state-of-the-art materials also suffer from several drawbacks,s uch as low efficiencyo fu pconversion emission, poor resistance to polar solvent environment and high toxicity of QDs,and tedious synthesis.T herefore,it is urgently desired to further expand the alternative luminescent materials to meet the demand of optical multiplexing technology innovation.…”