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Rational design of biodegradable semiconducting polymer nanoparticles for NIR-II fluorescence imaging-guided photodynamic therapy

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Abstract

Semiconducting polymer nanoparticles (SPNs) have shown great promise in second near-infrared window (NIR-II) phototheranostics. However, the issue of long metabolic time significantly restricts the clinical application of SPNs. In this study, we rationally designed a biodegradable SPN (BSPN50) for NIR-II fluorescence imaging-guided photodynamic therapy (PDT). BSPN50 is prepared by encapsulating a biodegradable SP (BSP50) with an amphiphilic copolymer F-127. BSP50 is composed of NIR-II fluorescent diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) segment and degradable poly(phenylenevinylene) (PPV) segment with the ratio of 50/50. BSPN50 has both satisfactory degradability under myeloperoxidase (MPO)/hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and NIR-II fluorescence emission upon 808 nm laser excitation. Furthermore, BSPN50 shows good photodynamic efficacy under 808 nm laser irradiation. BSPN50 shows a faster degradation rate than BSPN100 which has no PPV segment both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, BSPN50 can effectively diagnose tumor via NIR-II fluorescence imaging and inhibit the tumor growth by PDT. Thus, our study provides a rational approach to construct biodegradable nanoplatforms for efficient tumor NIR-II phototheranostics.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 22174070 and 22205115), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20230060), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu University (No. 21KJB150022), the Research startup fund of NJUPT (no. NY220149), Natural Science Foundation of NJUPT (no. NY221088), the Project of State Key Laboratory of Organic Electronics and Information Displays, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications (Nos. GZR2022010012 and GZR2023010022), and the Synergetic Innovation Center for Organic Electronics and Information Displays for the financial support.

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Organic Electronics and Information Displays & Institute of Advanced Materials (AM), Nanjing University of Posts & Telecommunications, 9 Wenyuan Road, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Xuxuan Gu, Jinlong Shen, Zhiwei Xu, Wenqi Wang, Ying Wu, Wen Zhou, Chen Xie & Quli Fan

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  1. Xuxuan Gu
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Correspondence to Chen Xie or Quli Fan.

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Rational design of biodegradable semiconducting polymer nanoparticles for NIR-II fluorescence imaging-guided photodynamic therapy

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Gu, X., Shen, J., Xu, Z. et al. Rational design of biodegradable semiconducting polymer nanoparticles for NIR-II fluorescence imaging-guided photodynamic therapy. Nano Res. 17, 5399–5408 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-024-6434-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-024-6434-7

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