摘要
Contrast agents are attracting a great deal of attention in photoacoustic inaging.Here weintroduce an exogenous contrast agent that provides high photoacoustic signal amplitude at thenear-infrared wavelength._Our_agents consist_of Indocyanine green(ICG)and phospholi-pid-polyethylene glycol(PL-PEG),entitled ICG-PL-PEG nanoparticles,These nanoparticleshave overcome numerous limitations of ICG,such as poor aqueous stability,concentration-dependent aggregation and lack of target specificity.ICG-PL-PEG nanoparticles are bio-compatible and relatively nontoxic.All the components of ICG-PL-PEG nanoparticles havebeen approved for human use.Upon pulsed laser irradiation,the nanoparticles are more eficient inproducing photoacoustic waves than ICG alone.The results showed that ICG-PL-PEG nano-particles act as good contrast agents for photoacoustic imaging.These unique ICG-PL-PEGnanoparticles have great potential in clinical applications.
基金
supported by the National Basic Research Program of China(2011CB910402,2010CB732602)
the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University(IRT0829)
the National Natural Science Foun-dation of China(81127004,11104087)
the Foum-dation for Distinguished Young Talents in Higher Education of Guangdong,China(LYM10061)
the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Programof Higher Education(20114407120001)
the Sci-ence and Technology Project of Guangzhou,China(2012J4100114).
