title: Utility of biodegradable plasmonic nanoclusters in photoacoustic imaging.
abstract: Plasmonic metal nanoparticles are used in photoacoustic imaging as contrast agents because of their resonant optical absorption properties in the visible and near-IR regions. However, the nanoparticles could accumulate and result in long-term toxicity in vivo, because they are generally not biodegradable. Recently, biodegradable plasmonic gold nanoclusters, consisting of sub-5 nm primary gold nanoparticles and biodegradable polymer stabilizer, were introduced. In this Letter, we demonstrate the feasibility of biodegradable nanoclusters as a photoacoustic contrast agent. We performed photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging of a tissue-mimicking phantom with inclusions containing nanoclusters at various concentrations. The results indicate that the biodegradable gold nanoclusters can be used as effective contrast agents in photoacoustic imaging.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Soon Joon
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.forename: Srivalleesha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mallidi
authors.forename: Jasmine M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Tam
authors.forename: Justina O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Tam
authors.forename: Avinash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Murthy
authors.forename: Keith P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.forename: Konstantin V
authors.initials: KV
authors.lastname: Sokolov
authors.forename: Stanislav Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Emelianov
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D003287:Contrast Media; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006046:Gold; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles; D053761:Nanocomposites; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance; D014465:Ultrasonics
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media; D006046:Gold