TY - JOUR
T1 - Ultrabright near-infrared fluorescent DNA frameworks for near-single-cell cancer imaging
AU - Liu, Xia
AU - Shi, Ben
AU - Gao, Yue
AU - Zhu, Shitai
AU - Yan, Qinglong
AU - Liu, Xiaoguo
AU - Shi, Jiye
AU - Li, Qian
AU - Wang, Lihua
AU - Li, Jiang
AU - Zhao, Chunchang
AU - Tian, He
AU - Willner, Itamar
AU - Zhu, Ying
AU - Fan, Chunhai
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2024.
PY - 2025/1
Y1 - 2025/1
N2 - Cancer imaging approaching single-cell levels is highly desirable for studying in vivo cell migration and cancer metastasis. However, current imaging probes struggle to simultaneously achieve high sensitivity, deep-tissue penetration and tissue specificity. Here we report size- and shape-resolved fluorescent DNA framework (FDF) dots with tail emission in the second near-infrared window (1,000–1,700 nm, NIR-II), which enable near-single-cell-level, tumour-targeting deep-tissue (~1 cm) NIR-II imaging in tumour-bearing mouse models. The construction of DNA frameworks with embedded hydrophobic nanocavity results in the non-covalent encapsulation of a designed NIR-Ib (900–1,000 nm) probe (dye Sq964). The FDF dots exhibit high water solubility, brightness and photostability. We find that the stable tumour retention of FDF dots with enhanced signal intensity arises from their shape-dependent accumulation in tumour cells. FDF-dot-based cancer imaging reveals in vivo sensitivity down to ~40 tumour cells, high tumour-to-normal tissue ratios up to ~26 and long-term imaging over 11 days. We also demonstrate NIR-II-image-guided breast cancer surgery with the complete excision of metastases with a minimum size of ~53 μm (~20 cells).
AB - Cancer imaging approaching single-cell levels is highly desirable for studying in vivo cell migration and cancer metastasis. However, current imaging probes struggle to simultaneously achieve high sensitivity, deep-tissue penetration and tissue specificity. Here we report size- and shape-resolved fluorescent DNA framework (FDF) dots with tail emission in the second near-infrared window (1,000–1,700 nm, NIR-II), which enable near-single-cell-level, tumour-targeting deep-tissue (~1 cm) NIR-II imaging in tumour-bearing mouse models. The construction of DNA frameworks with embedded hydrophobic nanocavity results in the non-covalent encapsulation of a designed NIR-Ib (900–1,000 nm) probe (dye Sq964). The FDF dots exhibit high water solubility, brightness and photostability. We find that the stable tumour retention of FDF dots with enhanced signal intensity arises from their shape-dependent accumulation in tumour cells. FDF-dot-based cancer imaging reveals in vivo sensitivity down to ~40 tumour cells, high tumour-to-normal tissue ratios up to ~26 and long-term imaging over 11 days. We also demonstrate NIR-II-image-guided breast cancer surgery with the complete excision of metastases with a minimum size of ~53 μm (~20 cells).
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85206620691
U2 - 10.1038/s41566-024-01543-7
DO - 10.1038/s41566-024-01543-7
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AN - SCOPUS:85206620691
SN - 1749-4885
VL - 19
SP - 79
EP - 88
JO - Nature Photonics
JF - Nature Photonics
IS - 1
M1 - e2123111119
ER -
