As per the American
Cancer Society, lung cancer is the leading
cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Since the accumulation of
exosomal programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) is associated with
therapeutic resistance in programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) and PD-L1
immunotherapy, tracking PD-L1-positive (PD-L1 (+)) exosomes is very
important for predicting anti-PD-1 and anti-PD-L1 therapy for lung
cancer. Herein, we report the design of an anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody-conjugated
magnetic-nanoparticle-attached yellow fluorescent carbon dot (YFCD)
based magnetic-fluorescence nanoarchitecture for the selective separation
and accurate identification of PD-L1-expressing exosomes. In this
work, photostable YFCDs with a good photoluminescence quantum yield
(23%) were synthesized by hydrothermal treatment. In addition, nanoarchitectures
with superparamagnetic (28.6 emu/g), biocompatible, and selective
bioimaging capabilities were developed by chemically conjugating the
anti-PD-L1 antibody and YFCDs with iron oxide nanoparticles. Importantly,
using human non-small-cell lung cancer H460 cells lines, which express
a high amount of PD-L1 (+) exosomes, A549 lung cancer cells lines,
which express a low amount of PD-L1 (+) exosomes, and the normal skin
HaCaT cell line, which does not express any PD-L1 (+) exosomes, we
demonstrate that nanoarchitectures are capable of effectively separating
and tracking PD-L1-positive exosomes simultaneously. Furthermore,
as a proof-of-concept of clinical setting applications, a whole blood
sample infected with PD-L1 (+) exosomes was analyzed, and our finding
shows that this nanoarchitecture holds great promise for clinical
applications.