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Fluorescent silicon nanoparticles-based nanotheranostic agents for rapid diagnosis and treatment of bacteria-induced keratitis

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Abstract

Recommended as a medical emergency, infectious keratitis with an acute and rapid disease progression can lead to serious damage of vision and even blindness. Herein, we present a kind of theranostic agents, which are made of vancomycin (Van)-modified fluorescent silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs-Van), enabling rapid and non-invasive diagnosis and treatment of Gram-positive bacteria-induced keratitis in a simultaneous manner. Typically, the resultant SiNPs-Van nanoagents have an ability of imaging bacteria in a short time both in vitro (5 min) and in vivo (10 min), making them an efficacious diagnostic agent for the detection of bacterial keratitis. In addition, the SiNPs-Van feature distinct antimicrobial activity, with superior activity of 92.5% at a concentration of 0.5 µg/mL against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus); comparatively, the antimicrobial rate of free vancomycin is 23.3% at the same concentration. We further explore the SiNPs-Van agents as eye drops for therapy of S. aureus-induced bacterial keratitis on rat model. Represented by slit-lamp scores, the keratitis severity of SiNPs-Van-treated corneas is 3.4, which is 59.6% and 77.3% slighter than vancomycin- (8.2 score) and PBS-treated corneas (15.0 score), respectively. The infected corneas recover to normal (1 score) after 7-d of SiNPs-Van treatment. Above results suggest that the SiNPs-Van could serve as a new kind of high-quality nanotheranostic agents, especially suitable for simultaneous diagnosis and therapy of Gram-positive bacteria keratitis.

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Acknowledgements

We thanks financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21825402, 21575096, 31400860, and 21605109), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China (Nos. BK20170061 and BK20191417) and the Program for Jiangsu Specially-Appointed Professors to Prof. Yao He, a project funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD), 111 Project as well as Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology (NANO-CIC).

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  1. Lu Zhang and Xiaoyuan Ji contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Nanoscale Biochemical Analysis, Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), and Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Lu Zhang, Xiaoyuan Ji, Yuanyuan Su, Xia Zhai, Bin Song, Airui Jiang, Daoxia Guo & Yao He

  2. Department of Ophthalmology, Children’s Hospital of Soochow University, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Hua Xu

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  1. Lu Zhang
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Correspondence to Yuanyuan Su or Yao He.

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Fluorescent silicon nanoparticles-based nanotheranostic agents for rapid diagnosis and treatment of bacteria-induced keratitis

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Zhang, L., Ji, X., Su, Y. et al. Fluorescent silicon nanoparticles-based nanotheranostic agents for rapid diagnosis and treatment of bacteria-induced keratitis. Nano Res. 14, 52–58 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3039-7

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