Biodegradable Inorganic Upconversion Nanocrystals for In Vivo Applications.
Pengfei PengNa WuLixiang YeFeilong JiangWei FengFuyou LiYongsheng LiuMao-Chun HongPublished in: ACS nano (2020)
Lanthanide-doped inorganic upconversion nanocrystals (UCNCs) are promising as fluorescent diagnostic and therapeutic agents for in vivo applications ranging from biological imaging to disease theranostics. However, all currently available lanthanide-doped inorganic UCNCs are not biodegradable and thus cannot be harmlessly eliminated from the body of living organism during a reasonable period of time, making their clinical translations nearly impossible. Here, we report a class of red-emitting biodegradable UCNCs based on Yb3+/Er3+-doped inorganic potassium heptafluozirconate (K3ZrF7:Yb/Er) that features a dynamically "soft" crystal lattice containing water-soluble [ZrF7]3- cluster and a K+ cation. The red-emitting K3ZrF7:Yb/Er UCNCs exhibit a pH-dependent biodegradation capability upon exposure to water both in vitro and in vivo, and the rapid biodegradation rate, monitored using the intrinsic red upconversion luminescence, can be tuned particularly in a mild acidic tumor microenvironment (pH ∼5-6). More importantly, the final biodegradation products of K3ZrF7:Yb/Er UCNCs can be excreted from the body of mice in a short period of time with no evidence of toxicity, in stark contrast to the nondegradable β-NaYF4:Yb/Er UCNCs that primarily accumulate in the main organs of mice. These findings described here unambiguously would benefit the future biomedical applications and clinical translations of lanthanide-doped inorganic UCNCs.
Keyphrases
- energy transfer
- quantum dots
- water soluble
- endoplasmic reticulum
- estrogen receptor
- sensitive detection
- breast cancer cells
- drug delivery
- perovskite solar cells
- high fat diet induced
- metabolic syndrome
- oxidative stress
- mass spectrometry
- skeletal muscle
- insulin resistance
- adipose tissue
- visible light
- room temperature
- single molecule
- contrast enhanced