Luminescent nanoprobes for in-vivo bioimaging

•We review the advancement of luminescent nanoprobes for in-vivo bioimaging.•We classify the luminescent nanoprobes described according to nanoluminophore.•We explain the challenges of this research field and give perspectives on it.

Luminescent bioimaging, based on nanoprobes, is highly selective, sensitive, and non-invasive, and it has become a powerful tool for visualizing tissues with cellular or sub-cellular resolution and mapping of molecular events. Taking into account the progressive increase in research on luminescent nanoprobe-based bioimaging, especially in living animals, we review recent advances in this area. Research is classified according to the nanoluminophore into quantum dots, upconversion nanophosphors, dye-doped nanoparticles (NPs), and other luminescent nanoprobes, including gold nanoclusters, carbon-based nanomaterials, persistent luminescence NPs, and porous silicon NPs. We demonstrate the progress and the challenges of applying luminescent nanoprobes from basic to clinical research, which is supposed to benefit the exploitation and the development of high-performance nanoprobes for in-vivo bioimaging.