Gold Nanostars-AIE Theranostic Nanodots with Enhanced Fluorescence and Photosensitization Towards Effective Image-Guided Photodynamic Therapy

摘要

Dual-functional aggregation-induced photosensitizers(AIE-PSs)with singlet oxygen generation(SOG)ability and bright fluorescence in aggregated state have received much attention in image-guided photodynamic therapy(PDT).However,designing an AIE-PS with both high SOG and intense fluorescence via molecular design is still challenging.In this work,we report a new nanohybrid consisting of gold nanostar(AuNS)and AIE-PS dots with enhanced fluorescence and photosensitization for theranostic applications.The spectral overlap between the extinction of AuNS and fluorescence emission of AIE-PS dots(665 nm)is carefully selected using five different AuNSs with distinct localized surface plasmon(LSPR)peaks.Results show that all the AuNS s can enhance the 1 O2 production of AIE-PS dots,among which the AuNS with LSPR peak at 585 nm exhibited the highest 1 O2 enhancement factor of15-fold with increased fluorescence brightness.To the best of our knowledge,this is the highest enhancement factor reported for the metalenhanced singlet oxygen generation systems.The Au585@AIE-PS nanodots were applied for simultaneous fluorescence imaging and photodynamic ablation of HeLa cancer cells with strongly enhanced PDT efficiency in vitro.This study provides a better understanding of the metal-enhanced AIE-PS nanohybrid systems,opening up new avenue towards advanced image-guided PDT with greatly improved efficacy.