A symmetrical fluorous dendron-cyanine dye-conjugated bimodal nanoprobe for quantitative 19F MRI and NIR fluorescence bioimaging.

(19)F MRI and optical imaging are two powerful noninvasive molecular imaging modalities in biomedical applications. (19)F MRI has great potential for high resolution in vivo imaging, while fluorescent probes enable ultracontrast cellular/tissue imaging with high accuracy and sensitivity. A bimodal nanoprobe is developed, integrating the merits of (19)F MRI and fluorescence imaging into a single synthetic molecule, which is further engineered into nanoprobe, by addressing shortcomings of conventional contrast agents to explore the quantitative (19)F MRI and fluorescence imaging and cell tracking. Results show that this bimodal imaging nanoprobe presents high correlation of (19)F MR signal and NIR fluorescence intensity in vitro and in vivo. Additionally, this nanoprobe enables quantitative (19)F MR analysis, confirmed by a complementary fluorescence analysis. This unique feature can hardly be obtained by traditional (19)F MRI contrast agents. It is envisioned that this nanoprobe can hold great potential for quantitative and sensitive multi-modal molecular imaging.