title: Recent advances in synthesis and surface modification of lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles for biomedical applications.
abstract: Lanthanide (Ln)-doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) with appropriate surface modification can be used for a wide range of biomedical applications such as bio-detection, cancer therapy, bio-labeling, fluorescence imaging, magnetic resonance imaging and drug delivery. The upconversion phenomenon exhibited by Ln-doped UCNPs renders them tremendous advantages in biological applications over other types of fluorescent materials (e.g., organic dyes, fluorescent proteins, gold nanoparticles, quantum dots, and luminescent transition metal complexes) for: (i) enhanced tissue penetration depths achieved by near-infrared (NIR) excitation; (ii) improved stability against photobleaching, photoblinking and photochemical degradation; (iii) non-photodamaging to DNA/RNA due to lower excitation light energy; (iv) lower cytotoxicity; and (v) higher detection sensitivity. Ln-doped UCNPs are therefore attracting increasing attentions in recent years. In this review, we present recent advances in the synthesis of Ln-doped UCNPs and their surface modification, as well as their emerging applications in biomedicine. The future prospects of Ln-doped UCNPs for biomedical applications are also discussed.
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Biomedical Engineering and Biomechanics Center, Department of Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, PR China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: ShuQi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: ZhenFeng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.forename: YongMei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: TianJian
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000379:methods*; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D028581:Lanthanoid Series Elements / Q000138:chemical synthesis*; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D028581:Lanthanoid Series Elements