Ultrahigh 19F Loaded Cu1.75S Nanoprobes for Simultaneous 19F Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Photothermal Therapy

F-19 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful noninvasive, sensitive, and accurate molecular imaging technique for early diagnosis of diseases. The major challenge of F-19. MRI is signal attenuation caused by the reduced solubility of probes with increased number of fluorine atoms and the restriction of molecular mobility. Herein, we present a versatile one-pot strategy for the fabrication of a multifunctional nanoprobe with high F-19 loading (similar to 2.0 x 10(8) F-19 atoms per Cu1.75S nanoparticle). Due to the high F-19 loading and good molecular mobility that results from the small particle size (20.8 +/- 2.0 nm) and ultrathin polymer coating, this nanoprobe demonstrates ultrahigh F-19 MRI signal. In vivo tests show that this multifunctional nanoprobe is suitable for F-19 MRI and photothermal therapy. This versatile fabrication strategy has also been readily extended to other single-particle nanoprobes for ablation and sensitive multimodal imaging.