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Morphology Tuning of Aggregation-Induced Emission Probes by Flash Nanoprecipitation: Shape and Size Effects on in Vivo Imaging

2018; American Chemical Society; Volume: 10; Issue: 30 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1021/acsami.8b08159

1944-8252

Mingwei Wang, Yisheng Xu, Yajing Liu, Kaizhi Gu, Jinchao Tan, Ping Shi, Dahai Yang, Zhiqian Guo, Weihong Zhu, Xuhong Guo, Martien A. Cohen Stuart,

Molecular Sensors and Ion Detection

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) imaging probes have recently received considerable attention because of their unique property of high performance in the aggregated state and their imaging capability. However, the tendency of AIE molecules to aggregate into micron long irregular shapes, which significantly limits their application in vivo, is becoming a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Here, we introduce a novel engineering strategy to tune the morphology and size of AIE nanoaggregates, based on flash nanoprecipitation (FNP). Quinolinemalononitrile (ED) is encapsulated inside properly selected amphiphilic block copolymers of varying concentration. This leads to a variety of ED particle morphologies with different sizes. The shape and size are found to have strong influences on tumor targeting both in vitro and in vivo. The current results therefore indicate that the FNP method together with optimal choice of an amphiphilic copolymer is a universal method to systematically control the aggregation state of AIE materials and hence tune the morphology and size of AIE nanoaggregates, which is potentially useful for precise imaging at specific tumor sites.