The progressive debilitating nature of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) combined with its unknown etiology and initial similarity to other inflammatory diseases makes early diagnosis a significant challenge. Early recognition and treatment of RA is essential for achieving effective therapeutic outcome. NIR‐II photoacoustic (PA) molecular imaging (PMI) is emerging as a promising new strategy for effective diagnosis and treatment guidance of RA, owing to its high sensitivity and specificity at large penetration depth. Herein, an antirheumatic targeted drug tocilizumab (TCZ) is conjugated to polymer nanoparticles (PNPs) to develop the first NIR‐II theranostic nanoplatform, named TCZ‐PNPs, for PA‐imaging‐guided therapy of RA. The TCZ‐PNPs are demonstrated to have strong NIR‐II extinction coefficient, high photostability and excellent biocompatibility. NIR‐II PMI results reveal the excellent targeting abilities of TCZ‐PNPs for the effective noninvasive diagnosis of RA joint tissue with a high signal‐to noise ratio (SNR) of 35.8 dB in 3D PA tomography images. Remarkably, one‐month treatment and PA monitoring using TCZ‐PNPs shows RA is significantly suppressed. In addition, the therapeutic evaluation of RA mice by NIR‐II PMI is shown to be consistent with clinical micro‐CT and histological analysis. The TCZ‐PNPs‐assisted NIR‐II PMI provides a new strategy for RA theranostics, therapeutic monitoring and the beyond.

中文翻译：

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用于类风湿关节炎的NIR-II光声成像引导疗法的Tocilizumab共轭聚合物纳米颗粒。

类风湿性关节炎（RA）的逐渐衰弱性质，病因不明以及与其他炎症性疾病的初步相似性，使得早期诊断成为一项重大挑战。RA的早期识别和治疗对于实现有效的治疗结果至关重要。NIR-II光声（PA）分子成像（PMI）由于其在大穿透深度的高灵敏度和特异性，正在成为一种有前途的有效诊断和治疗RA的新策略。本文将抗风湿靶向药物托珠单抗（TCZ）与聚合物纳米颗粒（PNP）结合，开发出第一个NIR-II治疗学纳米平台TCZ-PNP，用于PA影像引导的RA治疗。TCZ-PNPs具有很强的NIR-II消光系数，高光稳定性和出色的生物相容性。NIR-II PMI结果显示，TCZ-PNP具有出色的靶向能力，可以有效地对RA关节组织进行无创诊断，在3D PA断层扫描图像中具有35.8 dB的高信噪比（SNR）。值得注意的是，使用TCZ-PNP进行的一个月治疗和PA监测显示，RA被显着抑制。此外，NIR-II PMI对RA小鼠的治疗评估与临床micro-CT和组织学分析一致。TCZ-PNPs辅助的NIR-II PMI为RA治疗学，治疗监测等领域提供了新的策略。一项为期一个月的治疗和使用TCZ-PNPs进行的PA监测显示，RA被显着抑制。此外，NIR-II PMI对RA小鼠的治疗评估与临床micro-CT和组织学分析一致。TCZ-PNPs辅助的NIR-II PMI为RA治疗学，治疗监测等领域提供了新的策略。一项为期一个月的治疗和使用TCZ-PNPs进行的PA监测显示，RA被显着抑制。此外，NIR-II PMI对RA小鼠的治疗评估与临床micro-CT和组织学分析一致。TCZ-PNPs辅助的NIR-II PMI为RA治疗学，治疗监测等领域提供了新的策略。