Reengineering of Donor–Acceptor–Donor Structured Near-Infrared II Aggregation-Induced Emission Luminogens for Starving-Photothermal Antitumor and Inhibition of Lung Metastasis

Electron acceptor possessing strong electron-withdrawing ability and exceptional stability is crucial for developing donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) structured aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) with second near-infrared (NIR-II) emission. Although 6,7-diphenyl-[1,2,5] thiadiazolo [3,4-<i>g</i>] quinoxaline (PTQ) and benzobisthiadiazole (BBT) are widely employed as NIR-II building blocks, they still suffer from limited electron-withdrawing capacity or inadequate chemo-stability under alkaline conditions. Herein, a boron difluoride formazanate (BFF) acceptor is utilized to construct NIR-II AIEgen, which exhibits a better overall performance in terms of NIR-II emission and chemo-stability compared to the PTQ- and BBT-derived fluorophores. With finely tuned intramolecular motions and strong D-A interaction strength, TPE-BFF simultaneously exhibits high molar extinction coefficient (<i>ε=</i> 4.31 × 10⁴ M^-1cm^-1), strong NIR-II emission (Φ = 0.49%) and photothermal effect (η = 58.5%), as well as high stability. Thanks to these merits, the thermosensitive nanoparticles constructed by integrating TPE-BFF and the antiglycolytic agent 2-deoxy-d-glucose (2DG) are successfully utilized for imaging-guided photothermal antitumor lung metastasis by regulating glycolysis and reducing ATP-dependent heat shock proteins. Combining experimental results and theoretical calculations, BFF proves to be an outstanding electron acceptor for the design of versatile NIR-II AIEgens. Overall, this study offers a promising alternative for developing multifunctional NIR-II AIEgens in biomedical applications.