Activatable NIR-II organic fluorescent probes for bioimaging

NIR-II imaging is developed rapidly for noninvasive deep tissue inspection with high spatio-temporal resolution, taking advantage of diminished autofluorescence and light attenuation. Activatable NIR-II fluorescence probes are widely developed to report pathological changes with accurate targeting, among which organic fluorescent probes achieve significant progress. Furthermore, the activatable NIR-II fluorescent probes exhibited appealing characteristics like tunable physicochemical and optical properties, easy processability, and excellent biocompatibility. In the present review, we highlight the advances of activatable NIR-II fluorescence probes in design, synthesis and applications for imaging pathological changes like reactive oxygen species (ROS), reactive nitrogen species (RNS), reactive sulfur species (RSS), pH, hypoxia, viscosity as well as abnormally expressed enzymes. This non-invasive optical imaging modality shows a promising prospect in targeting the pathological site and is envisioned for potential clinical translation.