Penetrating Peptide-Bioconjugated Persistent Nanophosphors for Long-Term Tracking of Adipose-Derived Stem Cells with Superior Signal-to-Noise Ratio

Reliable long-term in vivo tracking of stem cells is of great importance in stem cell-based therapy and research. Fluorescence imaging with in situ excitation has significant autofluorescence background, which results in poor signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Here we report TAT penetrating peptide-bioconjugated long persistent luminescence nanoparticles (LPLNP-TAT) for long-term tracking of adipose-derived stem cells (ASC) without constant external excitation. LPLNP-TAT exhibits near-infrared emitting, red light renewable capability, and superior in vivo imaging depth and SNR compared with conventional organic dye and quantum dots. Our findings show that LPLNP-TAT can successfully label ASC without impairing their proliferation and differentiation and can effectively track ASC in skin-regeneration and tumor-homing models. We believe that LPLNP-TAT represents a new generation of cell tracking probes and will have broad application in diagnosis and therapy.