Emerging ultrasmall luminescent nanoprobes for in vivo bioimaging

Photoluminescence (PL) imaging has become a fundamental tool in disease diagnosis, therapeutic evaluation, and surgical navigation applications. However, it remains a big challenge to engineer nanoprobes for high-efficiency imaging and clinical translation. Recent years have witnessed increasing res...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chemical Society reviews 2023-03, Vol.52 (5), p.1672-1696
Main Authors: Li, Shihua, Wei, Jing, Yao, Qiaofeng, Song, Xiaorong, Xie, Jianping, Yang, Huanghao
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Luminescence
Medical imaging
Nanoclusters
Nanoparticles
Optical Imaging - methods
Photoluminescence
Quantum Dots
Signal to noise ratio
Silicon
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Summary:Photoluminescence (PL) imaging has become a fundamental tool in disease diagnosis, therapeutic evaluation, and surgical navigation applications. However, it remains a big challenge to engineer nanoprobes for high-efficiency imaging and clinical translation. Recent years have witnessed increasing research efforts devoted into engineering sub-10 nm ultrasmall nanoprobes for PL imaging, which offer the advantages of efficient body clearance, desired clinical translation potential, and high imaging signal-to-noise ratio. In this review, we present a comprehensive summary and contrastive discussion of emerging ultrasmall luminescent nanoprobes towards PL bioimaging of diseases. We first summarize size-dependent nano-bio interactions and imaging features, illustrating the unique attributes and advantages/disadvantages of ultrasmall nanoprobes differentiating them from molecular and large-sized probes. We also discuss general design methodologies and PL properties of emerging ultrasmall luminescent nanoprobes, which are established based on quantum dots, metal nanoclusters, lanthanide-doped nanoparticles, and silicon nanoparticles. Then, recent advances of ultrasmall luminescent nanoprobes are highlighted by surveying their latest PL imaging applications. Finally, we discuss existing challenges in this exciting field and propose some strategies to improve PL bioimaging and further propel their clinical applications.
ISSN:0306-0012
1460-4744
DOI:10.1039/d2cs00497f