A Near-Infrared-II Molecular Probe for Early Diagnosis of Acute Kidney Injury Induced by Diverse Etiologies
Yiqi Zhu, Dingyuan Yan, Junyong Zhu, Hongbo Xü, Weijie Zhang, Jianquan Hou, Dong Wang, Ben Zhong Tang
Abstract
Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a clinical syndrome characterized by complex etiologies and usually lacks obvious clinical manifestations at the early stage. Compared with traditional imaging methods, optical imaging is broadly considered to be a promising technique for diagnosis of kidney dysfunction own to the merits of noninvasiveness, high sensitivity and fast feedback speed. Herein, we report a renal-clearable fluorophore, PEG-TBSe, for in vivo imaging across diverse AKI models in the second near-infrared (NIR-II, 1000-1700 nm) window. Notably, PEG-TBSe possesses an ultrasmall size (∼5.5 nm) that is suitable for renal clearance, allowing for comprehensive assessment of AKI severity in prerenal, renal and postrenal models. In addition, the real-time imaging capacities of PEG-TBSe are sensitive to early changes in AKI, enabling the noninvasive identification of renal lesions earlier than common clinical assays. Overall, this study demonstrates an effective NIR-II small molecular probe for the early diagnosis and evaluation of the severity of kidney dysfunction in different AKI models.