High brightness NIR-II nanofluorophores based on fused-ring acceptor molecules

It is challenging to develop molecular fluorophores in the second near-infrared (NIR-II) window with long wavelength emission and high brightness, which can improve the performance of biological imaging. Herein, we report a molecular engineering approach to afford NIR-II fluorophores with these meri...

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Veröffentlicht in:Nano research 2020-09, Vol.13 (9), p.2570-2575
Hauptverfasser: Zhu, Xingfu, Liu, Chunchen, Hu, Zhubin, Liu, Haile, Wang, Jiang, Wang, Yang, Wang, Xinyuan, Ma, Rui, Zhang, Xiaodong, Sun, Haitao, Liang, Yongye
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:It is challenging to develop molecular fluorophores in the second near-infrared (NIR-II) window with long wavelength emission and high brightness, which can improve the performance of biological imaging. Herein, we report a molecular engineering approach to afford NIR-II fluorophores with these merits based on fused-ring acceptor (FRA) molecules. Dioctyl 3,4-propylenedioxy thiophene (PDOT-C8) is utilized as the bridging donor to replace 3-ethylhexyloxy thiophene (3-EHOT), leading to more than 20 times enhancement of brightness. The nanofluorophores (NFs) based on the optimized CPTIC-4F molecule exhibit an emission peak of 1,110 nm with a fluorescence quantum yield (QY) of 0.39% (QY of IR-26 is 0.050% in dichloroethane as reference) and peak absorption coefficient of 14.5 × 10 4 M −1 cm −1 in aqueous solutions, which are significantly higher than those of 3-EHOT based COTIC-4F NFs. It is found that PDOT-C8 can weaken intermolecular aggregation, enhance protection of molecular backbone from water, and decrease backbone distortion, beneficial for the high brightness. Compared with indocyanine green with same injection dose, CPTIC-4F NFs show 10 times higher signal-to-background ratio for whole body vessels imaging at 1,300 nm long pass filters.
ISSN:1998-0124
1998-0000
DOI:10.1007/s12274-020-2901-y