Subchronic intravenous toxicity study of biofunctional ZnO and its application as a fluorescence probe for cell‐specific targeting

Abstract

Successful development of safe and highly effective nanoprobes for targeted imaging of in vivo early cancer is a great challenge. Herein, we choose the visible‐light emitting zinc oxide non–core/shell type nanoparticle (NP) fluorophores (ZHIE) as prototypical materials. We have reported on these materials previously. The results showed that the ZHIE NPs exhibited good water solubility and good biocompatibility. This study was conducted to investigate the toxicity of ZHIE NPs when intravenously administered to mice repeatedly at the dose required for successful tumor imaging in vivo. Anti‐macrophage‐1 antigen (Mac1), a macrophage differentiation antigen, antibody‐conjugated ZHIE NPs successfully realized targeted imaging of murine macrophage cell line Raw264.7 cells. In conclusion, ZHIE NPs are not toxic in vivo and antibody‐conjugated ZHIE NPs have great potential in applications, such as single cell labeling.

Aluminum–nitrogen co‐doping improves the blue emission of ZnO films: A combined theoretical–experimental study

“…Our recent DFT simulation results show that NO 2 and SO 2 gases are chemically adsorbed on ZnO based heterojunctions [9].Interestingly, for the application of electrochemical communication, in order to improve the signal intensity, researchers have realized the real-time conversion of electrochemical current into fluorescence signal [10]. In addition, the visible-light emitting ZnO fluorescent material has also been used as safe and highly effective nanoprobes [11]. Therefore, the investigation on fluorescence emission of ZnO is necessary due its potential application in electrochemical communication, biosensor and white light diodes, and so forth.…”