Author(s)

Qinghe Wu, Benchao Zheng, Pengli Zhang, Mengfei Hou, Yifei Jiang and Chunfu Zhang

Corresponding Author

Chunfu Zhang

ABSTRACT

Metal-doped gold nanoclusters have attracted considerable attention in biomedical applications due to their nontoxicity and unique doped metal-dependent physicochemical properties. Herein, gadolinium (Gd)-doped gold nanoclusters are fabricated by utilizing bovine serum albumin (BSA) as the stabilizing agent and chloride e6 (Ce6) as therapeutic molecules, respectively, via a simple one-pot synthesis approach. The obtained gold nanoclusters, Ce6@BSA-Au-Gd NCs, exhibit little dark toxicity to cells, and are able to serve as a multifunctional theranostic agent for dual-modal fluorescence and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging-guided photodynamic therapy (PDT). Gd-doping imparts the nanoparticles superior T1 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) performance (r1= 12.32 mM-1s-1) compared with commercial MRI contrast agent (Gd-DTPA). In addition, the high cell internalization and large-capacity singlet oxygen (1O2) generation results in highly efficient PDT performance as revealed by ROS staining and cytotoxity assay in vitro. Collectively, we propose a successful paradigm for the design and preparation of theranostic nanoprobes based on metal-doped gold nanoclusters, which holds great potential in bioimaging and PDT-mediated cancer-killing applications.

KEYWORDS

Gold nanoclusters, metal doping, theranostics, photodynamic therapy, magnetic resonance imaging, fluorescence imaging