title: Fine-tuned h-ferritin nanocage with multiple gold clusters as near-infrared kidney specific targeting nanoprobe.
abstract: When stabilized and functionalized by biomolecules, noble metal (such as gold and silver) cluster-based hybrid nanocomposites have shown great promise for biomedical applications, due to their unique physiochemical properties originating from the inorganic elements and specific functionality and biocompatibility from their biological components. Although certain promise for bioimaging, biosensing, and biomimetic catalysis has been demonstrated, it is still a great challenge to integrate the defined functionality of the biomolecules with enhanced or novel physiochemical properties of the metal clusters, under control at the molecular level. Herein, based on molecular dynamics simulation of a gold (Au) cluster assembly, we designed near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent hybrid nanocomposites with multiple Au clusters within an apo H-ferritin (HFt) nanocage. The fluorescence quantum yield of near-infrared (NIR) Au-HFt is about 63.4% and the emission peak is 810 nm. The NIR Au-HFt is one of the first native protein-guided Au cluster-based nanomaterials for in vivo biowindow imaging. In vivo fluorescent imaging and quantification of Au element confirmed that Au-HFt not only retained the kidney targeting properties of HFt well (about 10 times higher Au concentration in kidney than in liver and spleen, the most common organs for nanoparticle accumulation), but also gained strong NIR imaging capability for live animals. The NIR Au-HFt showed powerful tissue penetrating ability, strong fluorescent efficiency, and excellent kidney targeting specificity. These results thus open new opportunities for kidney disease imaging and theranostic applications.
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials & Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology , 100190 Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Cuiji
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Zhonghe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Tianjiao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.forename: Yanhua
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Shan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Jianlin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lei
authors.forename: Jingyuan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Guangjun
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nie
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001052:Apoferritins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes / Q000737:chemistry*; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D007668:Kidney / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000378:metabolism; D008819:Mice, Nude; D008958:Models, Molecular; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D061848:Optical Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D051598:Whole Body Imaging / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D006046:Gold; D001052:Apoferritins