Department of Medical Engineering, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA.
Department of Surgery, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Dec 9;21(24):9389. doi: 10.3390/ijms21249389.
In this study, in vivo animal experiments with 12 nude mice bearing breast-cancer-patient-tissue-derived xenograft (PDX) tumors were performed aiming to verify the imaging capability of a novel miniaturized fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) endoscope, in combination with targeted nanoparticle-near-infrared (NIR) dye conjugates. Tumor-bearing mice were divided into two groups by systematic injection with urokinase plasminogen activator receptor-targeted ( = 7) and nontargeted ( = 5) imaging nanoprobes as a contrast agent, respectively. Each mouse was imaged at 6, 24, and 48 h following the injection of nanoprobes using the FMT endoscope. The results show that systemic delivery of targeted nanoprobes produced a 4-fold enhancement in fluorescence signals from tumors, compared with tumors that received nontargeted nanoprobes. This study indicates that our miniaturized FMT endoscope, coupled with the targeted nanoparticle-NIR dye conjugates as a contrast agent, has high sensitivity and specificity, and thus great potential to be used for image-guided detection and removal of a primary tumor and local metastatic tumors during surgery.
在这项研究中，我们使用了 12 只带有乳腺癌患者组织衍生异种移植（PDX）肿瘤的裸鼠进行了体内动物实验，旨在验证新型微型荧光分子断层扫描（FMT）内窥镜与靶向近红外（NIR）染料纳米颗粒偶联物的成像能力。荷瘤小鼠通过系统注射尿激酶型纤溶酶原激活物受体靶向（n = 7）和非靶向（n = 5）成像纳米探针分别分为两组，作为对比剂。在注射纳米探针后 6、24 和 48 小时，使用 FMT 内窥镜对每只小鼠进行成像。结果表明，与接受非靶向纳米探针的肿瘤相比，系统递送靶向纳米探针可使肿瘤的荧光信号增强 4 倍。这项研究表明，我们的微型 FMT 内窥镜与靶向纳米颗粒-NIR 染料偶联物作为对比剂具有高灵敏度和特异性，因此非常有潜力用于手术期间引导原发性肿瘤和局部转移瘤的检测和切除。
