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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 May 27.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Nanotechnol. 2019 Jul 15;14(9):874–882. doi: 10.1038/s41565-019-0499-6

Figure 1. Interactions of ICG4-GS-Au25 with sinusoidal glutathione efflux in the liver.

Figure 1.

a, Sinusoidal glutathione efflux in the liver: reduced glutathione (GSH) is efficiently synthesized inside hepatocytes and consistently transported to the perisinusoidal space (Disse space), which then diffuses into the sinusoids through the well-fenestrated liver sinusoidal endothelial cells and joins systematic circulation. b, When ICG4-GS-Au25 conjugates enter liver sinusoids, they can diffuse across endothelial fenestrations due to the significantly reduced blood velocity in liver sinusoids as compared to that in arteries and veins. Glutathione efflux from the hepatocytes reduces extracellular cystine (Cyss) to cysteine (Cys), which, along with the glutathione itself, react with ICG4-GS-Au25 conjugates by displacing protein-binding ICG-GS from the surface of Au25, recovering the fluorescence of ICG and transforming serum-protein bound non-renal clearable ICG4-GS-Au25 nanoclusters to renal clearable ones.