Significant Enhancement of Photothermal and Photoacoustic Efficiencies for Semiconducting Polymer Nanoparticles through Simply Molecular Engineering

Abstract

Semiconducting polymer nanoparticles (SP NPs) are employed as efficient nanoagents for "all-in-one" theranostic nanoplatforms with dual photoacoustic imaging (PAI) and photothermal therapy (PTT) functions based on their photothermal conversion effect. However, the mechanisms of tuning the PTT efficiency are still elusive, though several SP NPs with high photothermal efficiency are reported. Herein, two donor-acceptor (D-A) SP NPs PTIGSVS and PIIGSVS with the same donor unit but different acceptor units are designed and synthesized. Through tuning the acceptor unit, PTIGSVS shows more planar backbone structure, stronger D-A strength, redshifted absorption, enhanced extinction efficient, weakened emission properties, and more efficient nonradiative decay in comparison to the polymeric analogue PIIGSVS. Thus, PTIGSVS NPs present much higher photothermal conversion efficiencies (74%) than PIIGSVS NPs (11%), resulting in significantly enhanced in vitro and in vivo PAI and PTT performance. This contribution demonstrates that PTIGSVS NPs are superior PA/PTT agents for effective cancer theranostic and shed light on understanding the relationship between molecular structures and photothermal effect of CPs.

Achieving High‐Performance Photothermal and Photodynamic Effects upon Combining D–A Structure and Nonplanar Conformation

“…In the past decades, photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT) for cancer treatment have attracted much attention due to their advantages of tenderness, security and noninvasiveness. [ 1 ] Various nanoagents have been developed for PDT/PTT under near‐infrared (NIR) laser irradiation, including carbon nanomaterials (e.g., carbon dots [ 2 ] and carbon nanotubes [ 3 ] ), organic/polymeric semiconductors, [ 4–6 ] transition metal compound (e.g., ZnPc [ 7 ] and MoS 2 nanoparticles (NPs) [ 8 ] ), metal nanomaterials (e.g., gold nanoparticles [ 9 ] ), black phosphorus nanomaterials, [ 10 ] and biomolecular self‐assembly materials [ 11–13 ] . since the NIR irradiation can provide high penetration and minimal invasion.…”

Surfactant‐Stripped Micelles of Near Infrared Dye and Paclitaxel for Photoacoustic Imaging Guided Photothermal‐Chemotherapy

“…After that, the photothermal stabilities of both aza‐BDTP and aza‐BDTP/PTX micelles were carefully studied by comparing their temperature increasing profiles with that of ICG under five repeated cycles of 5 min laser exposure (with 10 min laser off after each cycle) . We found that both aza‐BDTP and aza‐BDTP/PTX micelles showed comparable temperature increases of ≈38–39 °C after each cycle of 785 nm laser exposure at 1.0 W cm −2 (Figure f).…”

Energy‐Converting Nanomedicine

“…NIR light‐triggered nano‐photothermal agents have been gained widespread focus due to the fact that nano‐photothermal agents can efficiently accumulate into tumors via the typical EPR effect and integrate multimodal therapeutic modalities and imaging components into single nanoplatform for optimized synergistic therapeutic effects . Inorganic nanosystems including metal nanoparticles, carbon‐based nanomaterials, two‐dimensional (2D) nanomaterials (transition metal nanoparticles, transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes)) as well as NIR‐absorbing organic nanoparticles such as semiconducting polymers and nanomicelles‐encapsulated organic dyes, have been broadly investigated as photoabsorbing agents for in vitro and in vivo photothermal ablation of cancer cells.…”