Dual Ratiometric SERS and Photoacoustic Core–Satellite Nanoprobe for Quantitatively Visualizing Hydrogen Peroxide in Inflammation and Cancer

Abstract

Excessive production of oxidative species alters the normal redox balance and leads to human diseases, such as chronic inflammation and cancer. Oxidative species are short‐lived species, which makes the direct, precise and real‐time measurements difficult. There is, therefore, a need for a highly sensitive and specific oxidative species probe in vivo . Herein, we developed a novel core‐satellite gold nanostructure nanoprobe with dual ratiometric surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and photoacoustic (PA) imaging strategies, to quantitatively visualize and precisely treat the inflammation/cancer‐related oxidative species. The H 2 O 2 activated second near‐infrared (NIR‐II) PA images of the nanoprobe can accelerate real‐time image acquisition of the entire area of the disease, which can further precisely differentiate between the inflammation region and normal tissue. Additionally, the fingerprint spectrum of the SERS with high sensitivity enabled ratiometrically measuring the point signals of different parts of the disease, along with the guidance of the NIR‐II PA imaging. It can not only quantitatively and precisely monitor the oxidative species ( e.g. H 2 O 2 ) produced in inflammation, tumor, and osteoarthritis in rabbits in real‐time, but also track the process of the anti‐inflammatory treatment process.