Guangxi Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Materials, Institute of Optical Materials and Chemical Biology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangxi University, Nanning, Guangxi 530004, P. R. China.
Anal Chem. 2022 Feb 22;94(7):3386-3393. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.1c05540. Epub 2022 Feb 10.
Hepatocellular carcinoma is a highly invasive malignant tumor of the liver, which is the main cause of cancer-related death. The cancerization of hepatocytes may lead to the changes of cell microenvironment, active substances, and enzymes. Viscosity is one of the important parameters of cell microenvironment. Therefore, the study of the change in the viscosity of hepatocytes is very important for the detection and treatment of liver cancer. However, the hepatocyte-specific fluorescent probes which can detect viscosity have not been developed yet. Herein, the first hepatocyte-specific fluorescent probe () for viscosity detection was designed and synthesized, which exhibited excellent optical properties for biological imaging studies. By using the unique probe , compared with the normal liver cells, a significant increase of viscosity in the liver cancer cells was observed in the cell imaging experiment. The organ imaging experiments showed that the probe could be successfully used to diagnose and image hepatocellular carcinoma . In addition, imaging revealed that the new probe can specifically target and image hepatocellular carcinoma in mice. We expected that this powerful tool may provide guidance for the detection and imaging of hepatocellular carcinoma in the future.
肝细胞癌是一种高度侵袭性的肝脏恶性肿瘤，是癌症相关死亡的主要原因。肝细胞的癌变可能导致细胞微环境、活性物质和酶的变化。粘度是细胞微环境的重要参数之一。因此，研究肝细胞粘度的变化对于肝癌的检测和治疗非常重要。然而，目前还没有开发出专门用于检测粘度的肝细胞特异性荧光探针。在这里，我们设计并合成了第一个用于粘度检测的肝细胞特异性荧光探针 ()，该探针在生物成像研究中表现出优异的光学性能。通过使用独特的探针 ，与正常的肝细胞相比，在细胞成像实验中观察到肝癌细胞的粘度显著增加。器官成像实验表明，该探针 可成功用于诊断和成像肝细胞癌。此外， 成像显示，新探针 可以特异性地靶向和成像小鼠的肝细胞癌。我们期望这个强大的工具可能为未来肝细胞癌的检测和成像提供指导。
