Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California, 1002 Childs Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
Biomater Sci. 2021 Jan 21;9(2):482-495. doi: 10.1039/d0bm01099e. Epub 2020 Aug 19.
Providing physicians with new imaging agents to help detect cancer with better sensitivity and specificity has the potential to significantly improve patient outcomes. Development of new imaging agents could offer improved early cancer detection during routine screening or help surgeons identify tumor margins for surgical resection. In this study, we evaluate the optical properties of a colorful class of dyes and pigments that humans routinely encounter. The pigments are often used in tattoo inks and the dyes are FDA approved for the coloring of foods, drugs, and cosmetics. We characterized their absorption, fluorescence and Raman scattering properties in the hopes of identifying a new panel of dyes that offer exceptional imaging contrast. We found that some of these coloring agents, coined as "optical inks", exhibit a multitude of useful optical properties, outperforming some of the clinically approved imaging dyes on the market. The best performing optical inks (Green 8 and Orange 16) were further incorporated into liposomal nanoparticles to assess their tumor targeting and optical imaging potential. Mouse xenograft models of colorectal, cervical and lymphoma tumors were used to evaluate the newly developed nano-based imaging contrast agents. After intravenous injection, fluorescence imaging revealed significant localization of the new "optical ink" liposomal nanoparticles in all three tumor models as opposed to their neighboring healthy tissues (p < 0.05). If further developed, these coloring agents could play important roles in the clinical setting. A more sensitive imaging contrast agent could enable earlier cancer detection or help guide surgical resection of tumors, both of which have been shown to significantly improve patient survival.
为医生提供新的成像试剂，以提高癌症检测的灵敏度和特异性，这有可能显著改善患者的预后。新的成像试剂的开发可能提供在常规筛查期间进行癌症早期检测的改进，或帮助外科医生识别肿瘤边缘以进行手术切除。在这项研究中，我们评估了人类经常接触的一类色彩鲜艳的染料和颜料的光学性质。这些颜料通常用于纹身墨水，而这些染料已获得 FDA 批准用于食品、药物和化妆品的着色。我们对它们的吸收、荧光和拉曼散射特性进行了表征，以期鉴定出一种新的染料，以提供卓越的成像对比度。我们发现，这些着色剂中的一些被称为“光学墨水”，具有多种有用的光学特性，其性能优于市场上一些临床批准的成像染料。表现最好的光学墨水（Green 8 和 Orange 16）进一步被纳入脂质体纳米颗粒中，以评估它们的肿瘤靶向和光学成像潜力。结直肠、宫颈和淋巴瘤肿瘤的小鼠异种移植模型用于评估新开发的基于纳米的成像对比剂。静脉注射后，荧光成像显示，与相邻的健康组织相比，新的“光学墨水”脂质体纳米颗粒在所有三种肿瘤模型中均有明显的定位（p<0.05）。如果进一步开发，这些着色剂可以在临床环境中发挥重要作用。更敏感的成像对比剂可以实现更早的癌症检测，或有助于指导肿瘤的手术切除，这两者都已被证明可以显著提高患者的生存率。
