Folate conjugated chitosan grafted thiazole orange derivative with high targeting for early breast cancer cells diagnosis.

The folate receptor (FR) is over-expressed on many solid tumors and has been exploited for targeted delivery of folic acid linked liposomes to cancer cells in vitro. In the present study, we developed a novel folic acid (FA) conjugated chitosan (CTS) grafted thiazole orange (TO) complex (FA-CTS-TO), and the formation can be used to label tumor cells. The structure of TO derivatives was confirmed by (1)H NMR and MS, and the fluorescence probe of FA-CTS-TO complex was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared analysis and Differential thermal analysis. The in vitro and in vivo of FA-CTS-TO complex were tested in breast cancer cells and the results showed a high targeting specificity in tumor cells with FR over-expressed. Such prominent fluorescence properties demonstrate again that FA-CTS-TO complex as a tumor targeting fluorescence probe is appropriate for breast cancer cells.