Blood Clearance, Distribution, Transformation, Excretion, and Toxicity of Near-Infrared Quantum Dots Ag2Se in Mice

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• 作者：Huan Tang ; Sheng-Tao Yang ; Yi-Fan Yang ; Da-Ming Ke ; Jia-Hui Liu ; Xing Chen ; Haifang Wang ; Yuanfang Liu
• 刊名：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：July 20, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：8
• 期：28
• 页码：17859-17869
• 全文大小：588K
• 年卷期：0
• ISSN：1944-8252

文摘

As a novel fluorescent probe in the second near-infrared window, Ag₂Se quantum dots (QDs) exhibit great prospect in in vivo imaging due to their maximal penetration depth and negligible background. However, the in vivo behavior and toxicity of Ag₂Se QDs still largely remain unknown, which severely hinders their wide-ranging biomedical applications. Herein, we systematically studied the blood clearance, distribution, transformation, excretion, and toxicity of polyethylene glycol (PEG) coated Ag₂Se QDs in mice after intravenous administration with a high dose of 8 μmol/kg body weight. QDs are quickly cleared from the blood with a circulation half-life of 0.4 h. QDs mainly accumulate in liver and spleen and are remarkably transformed into Ag and Se within 1 week. Ag is excreted from the body readily through both feces and urine, whereas Se is excreted hardly. The toxicological evaluations demonstrate that there is no overt acute toxicity of Ag₂Se QDs to mice. Moreover, in regard to the in vivo stability problem of Ag₂Se QDs, the biotransformation and its related metabolism are intensively discussed, and some promising coating means for Ag₂Se QDs to avert transformation are proposed as well. Our work lays a solid foundation for safe applications of Ag₂Se QDs in bioimaging in the future.