Biosynthesis of NIR‐II Ag2Se Quantum Dots with Bacterial Catalase for Photoacoustic Imaging and Alleviating‐Hypoxia Photothermal Therapy

Developing the second near-infrared (NIR-II) photoacoustic (PA) agent is of great interest in bioimaging. Ag2 Se quantum dots (QDs) are one kind of potential probe for applications in NIR-II photoacoustic imaging (PAI). However, the surfaces with excess anions of Ag2 Se QDs, which increase the probability of nonradiative transitions of excitons benefiting PA imaging, are not conducive to binding electron donor ligands for potential biolabeling and imaging. In this study, Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) cells are driven for the biosynthesis of Ag2 Se QDs with catalase (CAT). Biosynthesized Ag2 Se (bio-Ag2 Se-CAT) QDs are produced in Se-enriched environment of S. aureus and have a high Se-rich surface. The photothermal conversion efficiency of bio-Ag2 Se-CAT QDs at 808 and 1064 nm is calculated as 75.3% and 51.7%, respectively. Additionally, the PA signal responsiveness of bio-Ag2 Se-CAT QDs is ≈10 times that of the commercial PA contrast agent indocyanine green. In particular, the bacterial CAT is naturally attached to bio-Ag2 Se-CAT QDs surface, which can effectively relieve tumor hypoxia. The bio-Ag2 Se-CAT QDs can relieve heat-initiated oxidative stress while undergoing effective photothermal therapy (PTT). Such biosynthesis method of NIR-II bio-Ag2 Se-CAT QDs opens a new avenue for developing multifunctional nanomaterials, showing great promise for PAI, hypoxia alleviation, and PTT.