A second near-infrared light-activated nanoplatform with spatiotemporal signal transduction for simultaneous enrichment and portable detection of circulating tumor cells.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) serve as the first indicators of early-stage cancer metastasis and are therefore crucial for early cancer diagnosis, therapeutic response monitoring, and prognosis evaluation. However, accurate clinical detection of CTCs is frequently hindered by their extremely low abundance in peripheral blood and their susceptibility to interference from other blood components. To meet the practical requirements for the simultaneous capture and sensitive detection of CTCs with high efficiency, we herein report a dual-targeting nanoprobe-based second near-infrared (NIR-II) light-activated nanoplatform that enables a two-step sequential operation. Specifically, hyaluronic acid-modified ferroferric oxide nanoparticles (HA@FeO), with specific recognition capability, are used to first separate and collect CTCs from whole-blood samples. Subsequent in situ addition of folic acid-functionalized gold-doped cadmium sulfide nanoparticles (FA-Au@CdS) and copper ions generates copper sulfide composites that act as dual-signal-response nanosensors for ultrasensitive quantitative detection of CTCs. These nanosensors exhibit not only photothermal signals that "turn on" through an ion-exchange reaction but also spatiotemporal pressure signals using a signal transduction strategy, collectively enabling dual-mode portable detection of CTCs with a broad detection range from 10 to 10 cells/mL and a detection limit as low as 5 cells/mL. The practicability and efficiency of this multifunctional nanoplatform are further validated through the analysis of triple-negative breast cancer cells in human whole blood. This study develops a facile, scalable, and translatable approach for the simultaneous enrichment and accurate detection of CTCs with high efficiency for practical applications.