Centre for Inflammation Research, The University of Edinburgh, EH16 4TJ Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
ACS Chem Biol. 2021 Aug 20;16(8):1304-1317. doi: 10.1021/acschembio.1c00223. Epub 2021 Jul 27.
Proteases are enzymes capable of catalyzing protein breakdown, which is critical across many biological processes. There are several families of proteases, each of which perform key functions through the degradation of specific proteins. As our understanding of cancer improves, it has been demonstrated that several proteases can be overactivated during the progression of cancer and contribute to malignancy. Optical imaging systems that employ near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent probes to detect protease activity offer clinical promise, both for early detection of cancer as well as for the assessment of personalized therapy. In this Review, we review the design of NIR probes and their successful application for the detection of different cancer-associated proteases.
蛋白酶是能够催化蛋白质水解的酶，在许多生物过程中都具有重要作用。蛋白酶有几个家族，每个家族都通过降解特定的蛋白质来发挥关键功能。随着我们对癌症的认识不断提高，已经证明在癌症的进展过程中，几种蛋白酶可以过度激活，并导致恶性肿瘤的发生。采用近红外（NIR）荧光探针来检测蛋白酶活性的光学成像系统具有很大的临床应用潜力，不仅可以用于癌症的早期检测，还可以用于评估个性化治疗。在这篇综述中，我们回顾了 NIR 探针的设计及其在检测不同与癌症相关的蛋白酶方面的成功应用。
