PET and NIR optical imaging using self-illuminating ⁶⁴Cu-doped chelator-free gold nanoclusters

Self-illuminating fluorescence imaging without autofluorescence background interference has recently aroused more research interests in molecular imaging. Currently, only a few self-illuminating probes were developed, based mainly on toxic quantum dots such as CdSe, CdTe. Herein, we report a novel design of nontoxic self-illuminating gold nanocluster (⁶⁴Cu-doped AuNCs) for dual-modality positron emission tomography (PET) and near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence imaging based on Cerenkov resonance energy transfer (CRET). PET radionuclide ⁶⁴Cu was introduced by a chelator-free doping method, which played dual roles as the energy donor and the PET imaging source. Meanwhile, AuNCs acted as the energy acceptor for NIR fluorescence imaging. ⁶⁴Cu-doped AuNCs exhibited efficient CRET-NIR and PET imaging both in vitro and in vivo. In a U87MG glioblastoma xenograft model, ⁶⁴Cu-doped AuNCs showed high tumor uptake (14.9 %ID/g at 18 h) and produced satisfactory tumor self-illuminating NIR images in the absence of external excitation. This self-illuminating nanocluster with non-toxicity and good biocompatibility can be employed as a novel imaging contrast agent for biomedical applications, especially for molecular imaging.