Turn-On NIR-II Polymer Dots with Large Stokes Shift for In Vivo Visualizing Dynamical Brain Zinc in Alzheimer's Disease Mouse

J Phys Chem Lett. 2024 Dec 12;15(49):12129-12137. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c02803. Epub 2024 Nov 27.

Abstract

It is a critical and broad prospect to evaluate ion levels and monitor their dynamic changes in the brain for early diagnosis, in-depth mechanism investigation, and accurate staging of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD). It is still a great challenge to in vivo track Zn2+ levels in the brain by fluorescence imaging due to the drawbacks including short emission wavelength, poor selectivity and sensitivity, and unfavorable penetration across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) for currently developed fluorescent probes. We herein engineer a fluorescent probe with a large Stokes shift of 256 nm, NNDPTQ Pdots, which display substantial Zn2+-specific turn-on response in the NIR II region with the longest emission of 1064 nm up to now. The probe shows a fast response within seconds, high selectivity, low-nanomolar affinity of 6 nM, low detection limit of 3.4 nM, and efficient BBB-permeability efficacy of 37%. The results of brain imaging demonstrate that brain Zn2+ level in AD mice is substantially higher than normal mice and also is elevated with the prolonging of AD-bearing time. This study may provide a promising fluorescent indicator for in vivo tracing of brain Zn2+ levels to reveal AD pathogenesis.

MeSH terms

  • Alzheimer Disease* / diagnostic imaging
  • Alzheimer Disease* / metabolism
  • Animals
  • Blood-Brain Barrier* / metabolism
  • Brain* / diagnostic imaging
  • Brain* / metabolism
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Fluorescent Dyes* / chemistry
  • Mice
  • Optical Imaging
  • Polymers / chemistry
  • Quantum Dots / chemistry
  • Zinc* / chemistry
  • Zinc* / metabolism

Substances

  • Zinc
  • Fluorescent Dyes
  • Polymers