Phototheranostics involving both fluorescence imaging (FLI) and photodynamic
therapy (PDT) has been recognized to be potentially powerful for cancer
treatment by virtue of various intrinsic advantages. However, the state-of-the-art materials in this area are
still far from ideal towards practical applications, owing to their respective and collective
drawbacks, such as inefficient imaging quality, inferior reactive oxygen
species (ROS) production, the lack of subcellular-targeting capability, and dissatisfactory
theranostics delivery. In this contribution, these shortcomings are successfully addressed through the integration of finely engineered
photosensitizers having aggregation-induced emission (AIE) features and well
tailored nanocarrier system. The yielded AIE NPs simultaneously exhibit broad
absorption in visible light region, bright near-infrared fluorescence emission,
extremely high ROS generation, as well as tumor lysosomal acidity-activated and
nucleus-targeted delivery functions, making them dramatically promising for
precise and efficient phototheranostics. Both in vitro and in vivo evaluations
show that the presented nanotheranostic system bearing excellent photostability
and appreciable biosecurity well performed in FLI-guided photodynamic cancer
therapy. This study thus not only extends the applications scope of AIE
nanomaterials, but also offers useful insights into constructing a new
generation of cancer theranostics.
Highly efficient singlet oxygen generation, two-photon photodynamic therapy and melanoma ablation by rationally designed mitochondria-specific near-infrared AIEgens