posted on 2018-02-09, 00:00authored byTingting Sun, Jin-Hu Dou, Shi Liu, Xin Wang, Xiaohua Zheng, Yapei Wang, Jian Pei, Zhigang Xie
Photothermal
conversion in the second near-infrared (NIR-II) window allows deeper
penetration and higher exposure to lasers, but examples of NIR-II
photothermal agents are mainly formulated by inorganic compounds.
In view of the underlying influence of inorganic materials, a novel
NIR-II photothermal nanoagent based on a narrow band gap D–A
conjugated polymer (TBDOPV–DT) with 2,2-bithiophene as the
donor and thiophene-fused benzodifurandione-based oligo(p-phenylenevinylene) as the acceptor has been developed. More importantly,
TBDOPV–DT nanoparticles (TBDOPV–DT NPs) are demonstrated
to combine excellent photoacoustic imaging (PAI) and photothermal
therapy (PTT) ability. TBDOPV–DT NPs exhibit dramatic photostability
and heating reproducibility with a photothermal conversion efficiency
of 50%. Especially, the NPs possess a remarkable PTT effect toward
cancer cells in vitro and can eliminate tumor cells completely in
vivo under 1064 nm laser irradiation, while no appreciable side effects
have been observed. This study achieves PAI-guided cancer therapy
and sheds light on the future of using organic polymer NPs for the
NIR-II PTT of cancer.