Research Article
Dual photoacoustic/ultrasound multi-parametric imaging from passion fruit-like nano-architectures

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nano.2018.05.007Get rights and content

Abstract

Ultrasound (US) imaging is a well-established diagnostic technique to image soft tissues in real time, while photoacoustic (PA) is an emerging imaging technique employed to collect molecular information. Integration of PA and US imaging provides complementary information enhancing diagnostic accuracy without employing ionizing radiations. The development of contrast agents able to combine PA and US features is pivotal to improve the significance of PAUS imaging and for PAUS-guided treatment of neoplasms. Here, we demonstrate in relevant ex-vivo models that disassembling passion fruit-like nano-architectures (pfNAs) can be employed in PAUS imaging. pfNAs are composed by silica nanocapsules comprising aggregates of commercial NIR-dyes-modified polymers and ultrasmall gold nanoparticles. The intrinsic US and PA features of pfNAs have been fully characterized and validated in tissue-mimicking materials and in ex vivo preparations. Moreover, the application of a multi-parametric approach has allowed the increase of information extrapolated from collected images for a fine texture analysis.

Graphical Abstract

Passion fruit-like nano-architectures (pfNAs) are nature-inspired inorganic nanomaterials able to avoid the issue of persistence of noble metal nanoparticles in organisms while maintaining most of their intriguing features. Here we demonstrate by ex vivo investigations the intrinsic dual photoacoustic/ultrasound (PAUS) behaviors of pfNAs.

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Section snippets

Materials

IRDye 800CW-NHS ester was provided by Carlo Erba. All the other chemicals were purchased by Sigma-Aldrich and used without further purifications.

Passion fruit-like nano-architectures (pfNAs)

Nano-architectures were prepared as reported elsewhere and according to the procedure in the SI.17, 18

Synthesis of calcined hollow silica nanocapsules (cFNAs)

Hollow silica nanocapsules were produced by following a procedure similar to the protocol for the production of pfNAs, without employing ultrasmall gold nanoparticles.18 To 10 mL milliQ were added 5 μL of poly(sodium 4-styrene sulfonate) 70 kDa (30%

Synthesis of the biodegradable nano-architectures

Passion fruit-like Nano-Architectures (pfNAs) are disassembling nanocomposites able to jointly combine most of the appealing features of noble metal nanoparticles with their potential organism excretion.16 The production of pfNAs is reported in Figure S1.17 Poly(L-lysine) 15-30 kDa (PL) was covalently functionalized with commercial IRDye 800CW-NHS ester on about 5% of amines and used for the synthesis of nanocapsules.12, 19 Poly(sodium 4-styrene sulfonate) (PSS) coated ultra-small gold

Discussion

The optical behavior of pfNAs and their components in phosphate buffer solution (PBS) are reported in Figure S1. The Ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) absorbance spectrum of pfNAs shows: i) the typical Rayleigh scattering background due to the silica shells, ii) the absorption band of IRDye 800CW at around 800 nm, and iii) the localized surface plasmon resonance of gold nanoparticles aggregates at around 540 nm.12 The composition of pfNAs was engineered in order to include unique features for cancer

Author Contributions

PA and CA photoacoustic/ultrasound measurements and data analysis, SPM and DC synthesis and characterizations of nano-architectures, AF data analysis, LM design imaging experiments and paper writing, VV design the project and paper writing. The manuscript was written through contributions of all authors. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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    Conflict of interest: The authors declare no competing interests.

    Funding: LM thanks project “INSIDE” POR CREO FESR 2014-2020 (CUP ST: 3389.30072014.067000001). VV thanks the MFAG grant number 19852 from Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro (AIRC).

    Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Mrs. Ana-Katrina Mapanao and Dr. Ylea Vlamidis for spectral and DLS characterizations of pfNAs.

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    These authors have contributed equally.

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