Journal of Nanobiotechnology (Jul 2022)

A universal strategy for the fabrication of single-photon and multiphoton NIR nanoparticles by loading organic dyes into water-soluble polymer nanosponges

  • Li-Xing Yang,
  • Yu-Cheng Liu,
  • Chang-Hui Cho,
  • Yi-Rou Chen,
  • Chan-Shan Yang,
  • Yin-Lin Lu,
  • Zhiming Zhang,
  • Yi-Tseng Tsai,
  • Yu-Cheng Chin,
  • Jiashing Yu,
  • Hsiu-Min Pan,
  • Wei-Rou Jiang,
  • Zi-Chun Chia,
  • Wei-Shiang Huang,
  • Yu-Lin Chiu,
  • Chun-Kai Sun,
  • Yu-Ting Huang,
  • Li-Ming Chen,
  • Ken-Tsung Wong,
  • Han-Min Huang,
  • Chih-Hsin Chen,
  • Yuan Jay Chang,
  • Chih-Chia Huang,
  • Tzu-Ming Liu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12951-022-01515-5
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 20, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Abstract The development of optical organic nanoparticles (NPs) is desirable and widely studied. However, most organic dyes are water-insoluble such that the derivatization and modification of these dyes are difficult. Herein, we demonstrated a simple platform for the fabrication of organic NPs designed with emissive properties by loading ten different organic dyes (molar masses of 479.1–1081.7 g/mol) into water-soluble polymer nanosponges composed of poly(styrene-alt-maleic acid) (PSMA). The result showed a substantial improvement over the loading of commercial dyes (3.7–50% loading) while preventing their spontaneous aggregation in aqueous solutions. This packaging strategy includes our newly synthesized organic dyes (> 85% loading) designed for OPVs (242), DSSCs (YI-1, YI-3, YI-8), and OLEDs (ADF-1–3, and DTDPTID) applications. These low-cytotoxicity organic NPs exhibited tunable fluorescence from visible to near-infrared (NIR) emission for cellular imaging and biological tracking in vivo. Moreover, PSMA NPs loaded with designed NIR-dyes were fabricated, and photodynamic therapy with these dye-loaded PSMA NPs for the photolysis of cancer cells was achieved when coupled with 808 nm laser excitation. Indeed, our work demonstrates a facile approach for increasing the biocompatibility and stability of organic dyes by loading them into water-soluble polymer-based carriers, providing a new perspective of organic optoelectronic materials in biomedical theranostic applications.

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