Polyacrylamide based ICG nanocarriers for enhanced fluorescence and photoacoustic imaging

Indocyanine green (ICG) is an FDA approved tricarbocyanine dye. This dye, with a strong absorbance in the near infrared (NIR) region, has been extensively used for fluorescence and photoacoustic imaging in vivo. ICG in its free form, however, has a few drawbacks that limit its in vivo applications, such as non-targetability, tendency to form aggregates which changes its optical properties, fast degradation, short plasma lifetime and reduced fluorescence at body temperature. In order to bypass these inherent drawbacks, we demonstrate a polyacrylamide based nanocarrier that was particularly designed to carry the negatively charged ICG molecules. These nanocarriers are biodegradable, biocompatible and can be specifically targeted to any cell or tissue. Using these nanocarriers we avoid all the problems associated with free ICG, such as degradation, aggregation and short plasma lifetime, and also enhance demonstrate its ability towards photoacoustics and fluorescence imaging.