Renal Clearable Luminescent WSe2 for Radioprotection of Nontargeted Tissues during Radiotherapy

High-energy ionizing radiation is widely used in medical diagnosis and cancer radiation therapy. However, high-energy radiation can also impose significant damages in healthy tissues during medical treatments via direct DNA damages and indirect damages from production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Therefore, it is urgent to develop highly effective radioprotectants with low toxicities that can meet the increasing needs for alleviating the adverse effects from cancer radiation therapy and nuclear emergency. In this work, strongly catalytic ultrasmall (sub-5 nm) cysteine-protected WSe2 dots are employed to protect healthy tissues against radiation via diminishing radiation-induced free radicals. The WSe2 dots with high surface activities can recover radiation-induced DNA damages and eliminate the excessive ROS generated from radiation. In vivo experiments confirm that the survival rate of mice treated with WSe2 dots is significantly elevated with radiation damages postponed under exposure to high-dose ionizing radiation. Furthermore, the free radicals in major organs and hematological system can be appreciably omitted, suggesting their unique role as free radical scavengers. These WSe2 dots in ultrasmall size show rapid renal clearance of ≈74% injection dose via urine excretion in 24 h and do not cause any apparent toxicity in vivo for up to 30 d.