Poly(Acrylic Acid) Modification of Nd3+‐Sensitized Upconversion Nanophosphors for Highly Efficient UCL Imaging and pH‐Responsive Drug Delivery |
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| Authors: | Bei Liu Yinyin Chen Chunxia Li Fei He Zhiyao Hou Shanshan Huang Haomiao Zhu Xueyuan Chen Jun Lin |
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| Affiliation: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China;2. University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;3. Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials Chemistry and Physics, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, China |
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| Abstract: | In this work, a simple method is demonstrated for the synthesis of multifunctional core–shell nanoparticles NaYF4:Yb,Er@NaYF4:Yb@NaNdF4:Yb@NaYF4:Yb@PAA (labeled as Er@Y@Nd@Y@PAA or UCNP@PAA), which contain a highly effective 808‐nm‐to‐visible UCNP core and a thin shell of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) to achieve upconversion bioimaging and pH‐sensitive anticancer chemotherapy simultaneously. The core–shell Nd3+‐sensitized UCNPs are optimized by varying the shell number, core size, and host lattices. The final optimized Er@Y@Nd@Y nanoparticle composition shows a significantly improved upconversion luminescence intensity, that is, 12.8 times higher than Er@Y@Nd nanoparticles. After coating the nanocomposites with a thin layer of PAA, the resulting UCNP@PAA nanocomposite perform well as a pH‐responsive nanocarrier and show clear advantages over UCNP@mSiO2, which are evidenced by in vitro/in vivo experiments. Histological analysis also reveals that no pathological changes or inflammatory responses occur in the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and spleen. In summary, this study presents a major step forward towards a new therapeutic and diagnostic treatment of tumors by using 808‐nm excited UCNPs to replace the traditional 980‐nm excitation. |
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| Keywords: | core– shell nanoparticles bioimaging upconversion drug loading antitumor chemotherapy |
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