What is it about?
Upconverting nanoparticles and vesicles working via the TTA-UC mechanism, also called "triplet-triplet annihilation", are very bright compared to other upconverting systems, but they are unfortunately sensitive to the oxygen dissolved in solution. To solve this problem, we have looked at the effect of adding antioxidants in the solution such as ascorbic acid, histidine, or glutathione. We demonstrate that many of them lead to efficient and prolonged TTA upconversion in air, up to 40-60 min. Even in cells, when the cell is incubated with antioxidant, the upconversion detected in the cell become brighter!
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Why is it important?
Upconversion is very interesting for bioimaging and phototherapy but it need to work also in air. This article is one of the first demonstrations that it is very easy to have TTA upconversion in air. We published one of the first curves showing upconversion intensity vs. irradiation time.
Perspectives
The whole question is how to use such antioxidant strategies for phototherapy of bioimaging, where adding an antioxidant into the solution is not necessarily the best option. We are currently working on that.
Dr Sylvestre Bonnet
Universiteit Leiden
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Imaging Upconverting Polymersomes in Cancer Cells: Biocompatible Antioxidants Brighten Triplet-Triplet Annihilation Upconversion, Small, August 2016, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/smll.201601708.
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