Light-driven liquid metal nanotransformers for biomedical theranostics

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Abstract

Room temperature liquid metals (LMs) represent a class of emerging multifunctional materials with attractive novel properties. Here, we show that photopolymerized LMs present a unique nanoscale capsule structure characterized by high water dispersibility and low toxicity. We also demonstrate that the LM nanocapsule generates heat and reactive oxygen species under biologically neutral near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation. Concomitantly, NIR laser exposure induces a transformation in LM shape, destruction of the nanocapsules, contactless controlled release of the loaded drugs, optical manipulations of a microfluidic blood vessel model and spatiotemporal targeted marking for X-ray-enhanced imaging in biological organs and a living mouse. By exploiting the physicochemical properties of LMs, we achieve effective cancer cell elimination and control of intercellular calcium ion flux. In addition, LMs display a photoacoustic effect in living animals during NIR laser treatment, making this system a powerful tool for bioimaging.

Abstract

Liquid metals are excellent candidate materials for biomedicine, owing to their intriguing optical properties and chemical stability. Here, the authors design multifunctional theranostic liquid metal nanocapsules that, upon irradiation, generate heat and reactive oxygen species and change shape to release drugs.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Nat Commun

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Nat Commun

Title: Nature Communications

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group

ISSN (Electronic): 2041-1723

Publication date (Electronic): 31 May 2017

Publication date Collection: 2017

Volume: 8

Electronic Location Identifier: 15432

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Materials and Chemistry, Nanomaterials Research Institute (NMRI), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) , Central 5, 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8565, Japan

[2 ]School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) , Singapore 637457, Singapore

Author notes

[a ] e-miyako@ 123456aist.go.jp

Author information

Kanyi Pu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8064-6009

Article

Publisher Item ID: ncomms15432

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15432

PMC ID: 5460022

PubMed ID: 28561016

SO-VID: ce5605d9-8345-4ef5-a38c-be9366ddbba9

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

History

Date received : 01 August 2016

Date accepted : 29 March 2017

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