title: In vivo target bio-imaging of Alzheimer's disease by fluorescent zinc oxide nanoclusters.
abstract: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an irreversible neurodegenerative disease which is difficult to cure. When Alzheimer's disease occurs, the level of zinc ions in the brain changes, and the relevant amount of zinc ions continue decreasing in the cerebrospinal fluid and plasma of Alzheimer's patients with disease exacerbation. In view of these considerations, we have explored a new strategy for the in vivo rapid fluorescence imaging of Alzheimer's disease through target bio-labeling of zinc oxide nanoclusters which were biosynthesized in vivo in the Alzheimer's brain via intravenous injection of zinc gluconate solution. By using three-month-old and six-month-old Alzheimer's model mice as models, our observations demonstrate that biocompatible zinc ions could pass through the blood-brain barrier of the Alzheimer's disease mice and generate fluorescent zinc oxide nanoclusters (ZnO NCs) through biosynthesis, and then the bio-synthesized ZnO NCs could readily accumulate in situ on the hippocampus specific region for the in vivo fluorescent labeling of the affected sites. This study provides a new way for the rapid diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and may have promising prospects in the effective diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. xuewang@seu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Lanmei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: Chunqiu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Meina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Xiaoqi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Xiaoli
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Amatore
authors.forename: Xuemei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D000818:Animals; D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000737:chemistry; D001812:Blood-Brain Barrier; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005453:Fluorescence; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D051379:Mice; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D015034:Zinc Oxide / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D015034:Zinc Oxide