Molecular fluorination strategy for regulating NIR AIEgens to boost phototheranostics of nasopharyngeal carcinoma
摘要
Light-driven theranostics, so-called phototheranostics, represents one of the most momentous advances for cancer treatment, of particular interest is fluorescence imaging (FLI)-navigated photodynamic therapy (PDT). Development of prominent phototheranostic agent synchronously sharing high reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and conspicuous absorption/emission performance in terms of wavelength and intensity, still remains an appealing yet significantly challenging task. Herein, a molecular fluorination strategy was tactfully exploited to subtly regulate aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-featured photosensitizers, and the optimized agent FPIBT was obtained. The integration of beneficial fluorine results in extended emission wavelength tailing in the second near-infrared region and enhanced molar extinction coefficient, and promotes the intersystem crossing process by reducing energy gap between the S1 and Tn and increasing spin-orbit coupling constant, thus significantly improves ROS production capacity. By employing FPIBT nanoparticles, the unprecedented performance on NIR-II FLI-guided PDT towards nasopharyngeal carcinoma in mouse model is witnessed by the precise tumor diagnosis and efficient tumor elimination outcomes.