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Fluorination Enhances NIR‐II Fluorescence of Polymer Dots for Quantitative Brain Tumor Imaging
Author(s) -
Liu Ye,
Liu Jinfeng,
Chen Dandan,
Wang Xiaosha,
Zhang Zhe,
Yang Yicheng,
Jiang Lihui,
Qi Weizhi,
Ye Ziyuan,
He Shuqing,
Liu Quanying,
Xi Lei,
Zou Yingping,
Wu Changfeng
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.202007886
Subject(s) - fluorescence , polymer , chemistry , biophysics , excited state , planarity testing , fluorophore , photochemistry , optics , crystallography , biology , physics , organic chemistry , nuclear physics
Here, we describe a fluorination strategy for semiconducting polymers for the development of highly bright second near‐infrared region (NIR‐II) probes. Tetrafluorination yielded a fluorescence QY of 3.2 % for the polymer dots (Pdots), over a 3‐fold enhancement compared to non‐fluorinated counterparts. The fluorescence enhancement was attributable to a nanoscale fluorous effect in the Pdots that maintained the molecular planarity and minimized the structure distortion between the excited state and ground state, thus reducing the nonradiative relaxations. By performing through‐skull and through‐scalp imaging of the brain vasculature of live mice, we quantitatively analyzed the vascular morphology of transgenic brain tumors in terms of the vessel lengths, vessel branches, and vessel symmetry, which showed statistically significant differences from the wild type animals. The bright NIR‐II Pdots obtained through fluorination chemistry provide insightful information for precise diagnosis of the malignancy of the brain tumor.