Over the past decades, although there has been a great deal of research on the effectiveness, safety, stability and manufacturability of vesicular drug delivery systems, the
in vivo fate and underlying mechanisms of these drug carriers remain less explored, limiting progress toward commercialization [
222]. In addition, the unspecified
in vivo fate affects the judgment of the effectiveness of the formulation, which largely hinders the application of vesicular carriers for oral drug delivery and increases the resistance to clinical translation of these formulations. This is consistent with Ren
et al.'s review of vesicular drug delivery systems, where they state that
in vivo fate affects the performance of vesicular formulations and that the most important factors impacting the efficiency of oral drug delivery are premature release and structural stability, which largely depend on the properties of both payloads and vehicles used [
223]. According to the size, composition and drug-loading form of the vesicular drug delivery systems, they can be classified as nano-carrier drugs [
224]. Indeed, the
in vivo fate of these nano-carrier drugs for oral use has been surrounded by controversy for several years. Some researchers argue that the enhanced oral absorption is attributable to the vesicles crossing the intestinal epithelium as a whole, while others insist that these drug-loaded vesicles are absorbed in the GI tract after a series of digestive processes to form other drug-loaded carriers (
e.g., mixed micelles) that differ from the initial form [
225]. Therefore, clarifying the
in vivo fate of the vesicular drug delivery system is of great significance in explaining the mechanisms by which the formulation enhances drug absorption, as well as the safety and stability evaluation. Initially,
in vivo analysis of drugs was performed by conventional liquid chromatography and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) techniques. By determining the amount of drug in plasma or tissue, the possible
in vivo processes of orally administered drugs were inferred. However, these methods do not accurately determine the form in which the drug is present, and therefore require pre-treatment of plasma/tissue samples prior to determination. For example, Su
et al. analyzed the pharmacokinetic behavior of amphotericin B liposomes by separating carrier-bound amphotericin B and freely released amphotericin B from plasma by solid-phase extraction columns, and then determining the drug content using LC-MS/MS, respectively [
226]. Although these analytical methods can determine to some extent how much drug is absorbed, the
in vivo fate of the drug prior to absorption is still unknown. In order to elucidate this issue, various biosensing tools such as fluorescent imaging, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging have been employed to explore the
in vivo fate of vesicular drug delivery systems [
227-
229]. Further, the fluorescent-based tracer technology has been widely studied due to its flexible controllability, negligible toxicity and superior photostability [
230]. Tang
et al. reported novel fluorophores with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties [
231]. And when fluorescein in solution reaches high localized concentrations and forms aggregates, both conventional fluorescein fluorophores and novel fluorescent nanomaterials may suffer a strong
π-
π stack, leading to a significant decrease in fluorescence intensity in the process called "aggregation-induced quenching" (ACQ) [
232]. Gratifyingly, researchers have developed a series of fluorescent probes based on the principles of AIE and ACQ for exploring the
in vivo fate of nano-carrier drugs and have made promising progress in recent years. Wu
et al. developed a series of near-infrared ACQ fluorescent probes with sensitive water quenching properties, effectively eliminating the interference of free probes on the signals from labeled intact particles, thereby realizing the accurate resolution of the
in vivo spatiotemporal fate of nano-carrier drugs. These novel probes have been successfully applied to exploring the
in vivo fate of various nanocarriers
via different administration routes, including nanoemulsion [
233], injectable fat emulsions [
234], polymeric nanoparticles [
235,
236], solid lipid nanoparticles [
237], ultrafine drug particles [
238], nanosuspensions [
239] and polymer micelles [
240,
241],
etc. The schematic of the ACQ effect (
Fig. 6A) and some results of the
in vivo fate studies of the above nanocarriers are summarized in
Fig. 6. Hu
et al. found that the water-quenching dyes (P2) was able to report the
in vivo fate of lipid nanocarriers more accurately compared to the conventional non-water-quenching dyes (DiR), suggesting that water-quenching dyes can serve as better tracer molecules (
Fig. 6B) [
242]. In addition, Wu
et al. proposed the concept of the absolute aggregation-caused quenching effect for the first time based on these studies [
243]. Using aza-BODIPY, the classical ACQ probe, as the parent, by enhancing its hydrophobicity, planarity and rigidity, they synthesized the novel fluorescent probes FD-B21 and FD-C7 [
244], which exhibited better near-infrared emission, high quantum yield, photostability, water sensitivity, and negligible re-illumination compared with conventional probes, thereby enhancing the accuracy of these probes in exploring the
in vivo fate of the nanocarriers. The specific mechanism can be explained using the example of polymer micelles. The ACQ probe possesses a strong and stable fluorescence signal when the water-quenched probe is encapsulated in the hydrophobic core of the polymer micelles. Once the micelles are depolymerized or degraded, the probe is released and then aggregates in water, and its fluorescence is rapidly quenched due to the ACQ effect. Thus, the interference of the free probe signal can be completely eliminated, and the signal can be tracked in real time from the intact polymer micelle particle. The final experimental results support integral polymeric micelles across the enteric epithelia, but the total amount may be limited (
Fig. 6D) [
240]. This result is similar to a previous report that bilosomes surviving the GI environment can be absorbed as intact vesicles (
Fig. 6C)
[155,
187]. On the other hand, benefiting from these fluorescent probe technologies, researchers can conduct more in-depth studies, such as using the fluorescent resonance energy transfer (FRET) probes (DiO and DiI) to investigate the effect of nanoparticle shape on cellular uptake, and the results demonstrated that more nanorods were internalized into Caco-2 cells than nanospheres (
Fig. 6E) [
245].