High-contrast Noninvasive Imaging of Kidney Clearance Kinetics Enabled by Renal Clearable Nanofluorophores.

Noninvasive imaging of kidney clearance kinetics (KCK) of renal clearable probes is key to studying unilateral kidney function diseases, but such imaging is highly challenging to achieve with in vivo fluorescence. While this long-standing challenge is often attributed to the limited light penetration depth, we found that rapid and persistent accumulation of conventional dyes in the skin "shadowed" real fluorescence signals from the kidneys and prevented noninvasive imaging of KCK, which, however, can be addressed with renal clearable nanofluorophores. By integrating near infrared emission with efficient renal clearance and ultralow background interference, the nanofluorophores can increase kidney-contrast enhancement and imaging-time window by approximately 50- and 1000-fold over conventional dyes, and significantly minimize deviation between noninvasive and invasive KCK, laying down a foundation for translating in vivo fluorescence imaging in preclinical noninvasive kidney function assessments.