Renal clearable Hafnium-doped carbon dots for CT/Fluorescence imaging of orthotopic liver cancer

Carbon dots (CDs) are emerging as powerful nanoprobes for multiple-model bioimaging. Nowadays, orthotopic xenograft models attract increasing attention because of their superiorities of duplicating the tumor microenvironment . However, compared with the extensive study of subcutaneous xenograft tumors , less attention has been paid to CDs for in vivo orthotopic tumor imaging . Furthermore, it is very desirable for a nanoprobe to achieve preferential accumulation at the tumor site and efficient renal clearance . In this work, a novel kind of Hafnium-doped CDs (HfCDs) were successfully prepared via a simple one-pot pyrolysis method. The significant advantages including robust stability, good biocompatibility , excellent water solubility, remarkable computed tomography (CT) contrast performance and preferential tumor accumulation capability endow HfCDs with particular functions of CT/fluorescence imaging of orthotopic liver cancer initially. More importantly, HfCDs could locate at the tumor site and achieve the rapid imaging within 1 min. The findings of the current study represent a facile and universal approach to fabricate outstanding renal clearable multimodal imaging nanoprobes with great potential for clinical diagnosis.