The second near-infrared (NIR-II, 1000-1700 nm) region has recently emerged as a “biological transparency window” allowing for visualization of centimeter-scale depth and investigation of anatomical features in biomedical applications because of some key advantages including deep tissue penetration, low auto-fluorescence, and high contrast-to-noise ratio. Therefore, developing novel small-molecule-based NIR-II probes with good tumor targeting, multimodal imaging characteristics and therapeutic functions is highly demanded for precise tumor diagnosis and treatment.

Recently, Prof. Haibin Shi group developed a novel tumor-targetable NIR-II fluorescent probe by conjugating a NIR-II emissive organic fluorophore with two hydrophilic cRGD peptides. This probe can form uniform nanoparticles in aqueous solution and possesses bright NIR-II fluorescence, strong PA and SPECT signals, which allows for noninvasively accurate detection of tumors through NIR-II/PA/SPECT multimodal imaging. More notably, both in vitro and in vivo studies have demonstrated the outstanding ability of probe for effective photothermal therapy of tumorsowing to its prominent photothermal effect. We believe that the current study may offer a promising tool for accurate diagnosis and efficient therapy of malignant tumors.

Their work has been published in Nanoscale (Nanoscale, 2020, 12, 6953-6958), titled as “A novel α_vβ₃ integrin-targeted NIR-II nanoprobe for multimodal imaging-guided photothermal therapy of tumors in vivo”.

Link to Paper：https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2020/nr/c9nr10720g.

Link to Prof. Shi’ group：http://42.244.8.111/_s361/main.psp