Fig. 5.

Cellular uptake in HepG2 and in vivo tumor accumulation of Ce6/NPs. (A) Representative cellular uptake images of HepG2 cells after incubation with TPL+Ce6/NPs for 4 h by CLSM observation. Hoechst 33,342 and phalloidin were employed to stain cell nucleus and cytoskeleton. The scale bar is 50 µm. (B, C) Quantitative intracellular fluorescence determination in HepG2 cells with treatment of free Ce6, free TPL and TPL+Ce6/NPs, respectively for 4 h by FCM. *P < 0.05 indicates TPL+Ce6/NPs versus free Ce6 group. (D) In vivo real-time imaging study of H22 tumor-bearing mice after intravenous injection of Ce6/NPs or free Ce6 at different time intervals. At 24 h post-injection, tumors were harvested and observed by ex vivo fluorescent imaging.