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Updated: Jul 31, 2025
Facile Preparation and Photoactivation of Prodrug-Dye Nanoassemblies
Published on: February 17, 2023
Water-soluble polymer brush-substituted squaraine NIR-II dye for efficient photothermal therapy
Xiaoli Li1, Song Guo1, Weixing Deng1
1Key Laboratory of New Processing Technology for Nonferrous Metal & Materials, Ministry of Education/Guangxi Key Laboratory of Optical and Electronic Materials and Devices, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin 541004, China. lyuanli@glut.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Near-infrared II (NIR-II, 1000-1700 nm) fluorescence imaging has the advantages of low light scattering and weak biological autofluorescence compared with conventional NIR (600-900 nm) fluorescence imaging and can obtain a high signal-to-noise ratio in deeper biological tissues, as well as micron-level high resolution. A great deal of effort has been directed toward the construction of conjugated polymers for effective NIR-triggered fluorescence imaging (FI) and photothermal therapy (PTT) combined therapy. However, NIR-II fluorescent materials are mainly nanoparticles prepared by coprecipitation methods, and water-soluble NIR-II materials need to be further developed. In this paper, we synthesized novel water-soluble squaric acid nanoparticles (SQ-POEGMA) with low toxicity and excellent photostability by attaching a water-soluble oligomer (POEGMA) to the small molecule squaric acid through a click chemistry reaction. The photothermal conversion efficiency of SQ-POEGMA is 33% in vitro, which can effectively inhibit the growth of cancer cells with 94% tumor inhibition rate in vivo under 808 nm laser irradiation, while no appreciable side effects were observed.
