Heteroions Radii Matching Produced Intensely Luminescent Bismuth-Ag₂S Nanocrystals for through-Skull NIR-II Imaging of Orthotopic Glioma

Abstract

Heteroions doped Ag 2 S nanocrystals (NCs) exhibiting enhanced near-infrared-II emission (NIR-II) hold great promise for glioma diagnosis. Nevertheless, current doped Ag 2 S NCs paradoxically improved properties via toxic dopants, and the blood−brain barrier (BBB) constitutes another challenge for orthotopic glioma imaging. Thus, it is urgent to develop biofriendly high-bright Ag 2 S NCs with active BBB-penetration for glioma-targeted imaging. Herein, bismuth (Bi) was screened to obtain Bi−Ag 2 S NCs with high absolute PLQY (∼13.3%) for its matched ionic-radius (1.03 Å) with Ag + . The Bi−Ag 2 S NCs exhibited a higher luminance and deeper penetration (5−6 mm) than clinical indocyanine green. Upon conjugation with lactoferrin, the NCs acquired BBB-crossing and glioma-targeting abilities. Time-dependent NIR-II-imaging demonstrated their effective accumulation in glioma with skull/scalp intact after intravenous injection. Moreover, the toxic-metal-free NCs exhibited negligible toxicity and great biocompatibility. The success of leveraging the ion-radii comparison may unlock the full potential of doped-Ag 2 S NCs in bioimaging and inspire the development of various doped NIR-II NCs.