Manipulating ICG J-Aggregation and Disaggregation for Imaging-Guided Cancer Therapy with Self-Reporting Efficiency

Adv Healthc Mater. 2025 Jun;14(15):e2405032. doi: 10.1002/adhm.202405032. Epub 2025 May 6.

Abstract

Integrating imaging guided therapy and therapeutic effect self-reporting would highly benefit clinic applications. J-type aggregates of organic dyes with corresponding photothermal effect have made them popular agents for photoacoustic (PA) imaging and photothermal therapy (PTT). However, approaches to manipulate the disaggregation of J-aggregate with corresponding organic dye fluorescence recovery have rarely been reported, which limits the full exploration of J-aggregate in therapeutic applications. Herein, indocyanine green (ICG) J-aggregate is designed in a micelle structure (J-ICG-Micelle) by co-assembling ICG with DSPE-Pep-PEG, which contains peptide KADEVDAC that recognized and cleaved by caspase-3. Taking advantages of the red-shifted absorbance of J-ICG-Micelle, it achieves PA imaging navigated delivery process with an indication of tumor accumulation time and position to perform PTT. Corresponding cell apoptosis and caspase-3 generation cleaves peptide KADEVDAC and results in fluorescence recovery of ICG, which self-reports therapeutic effect in real time, and the intensity for fluorescence recovery demonstrates similar tendency as H&E staining at tumor sections. The as-presented J-ICG-Micelle would have a promising contribution to precise cancer therapy.

Keywords: ICG J‐aggregate; NIR‐II imaging; caspase‐3 imaging; photothermal therapy; self‐reporting therapeutic efficiency.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Apoptosis / drug effects
  • Caspase 3 / metabolism
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Humans
  • Indocyanine Green* / chemistry
  • Indocyanine Green* / pharmacology
  • Mice
  • Mice, Nude
  • Micelles
  • Neoplasms* / diagnostic imaging
  • Neoplasms* / therapy
  • Photoacoustic Techniques / methods

Substances

  • Indocyanine Green
  • Micelles
  • Caspase 3