Optically Programmable Plasmon Enhanced Fluorescence-Catalytic Hairpin Assembly Signal Amplification Strategy for Spatiotemporally Precise Imaging

Signal amplification strategies with spatiotemporally high sensitivity can provide more accurate information and hold great promise for improving the accuracy of disease diagnosis. Herein, a 808 nm near-infrared (NIR) light-activated plasmon enhanced fluorescence-catalytic hairpin assembly (PEF-CHA) signal amplification strategy was proposed for spatiotemporally controllable precise imaging of miRNA in vitro and in vivo with ultrasensitivity. The proposed 808 nm NIR light-activated PEF-CHA signal amplification strategy is constructed through combining up-conversion photocontrol and PEF technologies with CHA. It is worth noting that the laser irradiation-induced overheating effect could be effectively alleviated by using Nd3+-sensitized upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) to convert 808 nm NIR light to ultraviolet (UV) light, which is almost nondestructive to cells or tissues. In addition, nonspecific activation as well as false positive signals can be effectively avoided. Moreover, the detection limit can be reduced by approximate 38 times thanks to the high sensitivity of the proposed strategy. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the 808 nm NIR light-activated PEF-CHA signal amplification strategy can be expanded to sensitive and activatable imaging of intratumoral miRNAs in living mice, showing feasible prospects for precise biological and medical analysis.