<i>In Vivo</i> High-Resolution Bioimaging of Bone Marrow and Fracture Diagnosis Using Lanthanide Nanoprobes with 1525 nm Emission

Abstract

Bones play vital roles in human health. Noninvasive visualization of the full extent of bones is highly demanded to evaluate many bone-related diseases. Herein, we report poly (acrylic acid) (PAA)-modified NaLuF4:Yb/Er/Gd/Ce@NaYF4 nanoparticles (PAA-Er) with second near-infrared emission beyond 1500 nm (also referred as NIR-IIb) for high-resolution bone/bone marrow imaging and bone fracture diagnosis. The NIR-IIb optical-guided bone marrow imaging presents a high signal to noise ratio, which is superior to that for imaging in the NIR-II window (1000–1400 nm, NIR-IIa). Importantly, we also investigated the size-dependent accumulation of the nanoparticles and the possible accumulation mechanism of the designed PAA-Er nanoprobes in bone marrow. Due to the high affinity capability of the PAA-Er nanoprobes, a highly sensitive NIR-IIb optical-guided bone fracture diagnosis was successfully achieved. This novel technology paves the way to design lanthanide nanoprobes for NIR-IIb optical-guided high-resolution bone marrow imaging and bone-related disease diagnosis.