Rod-like amphiphilic AIE-active NIR probe enables super-early precise in-vivo detection of Aβ fibrils/plaques

Abstract Precise and early detection of Aβ fibrils/plaques is pivotal to the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD), a serious disease threatening human health. Optical imaging stands out to be a promising technique for such task. However, restricted by poor blood-brain barrier penetrability, short-wavelength excitation and emission, and aggregation-caused quenching effect, the clinically used gold-standard probes are usually powerless in early in-vivo diagnosis of AD. To address these issues, we put forward an “all-in-one” design principle and develop a simple rod-like amphiphilic NIR AIE probe to demonstrate its feasibility. In-vitro, ex-vivo, and in-vivo experiments with different strains of mice indicates that AIE-CNPy-AD holds the universality to Aβ fibrils/plaques identification. Noteworthily, AIE-CNPy-AD is even able to precisely trace the small and sparsely-distributed Aβ fibrils/plaques in AD model mice as young as 4-month-old APP/PS1 mice, the youngest having Aβ deposits, suggesting the probe might be an ideal alternative for early AD diagnosis.