College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China.
Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
Adv Mater. 2023 Sep;35(36):e2212231. doi: 10.1002/adma.202212231. Epub 2023 Jul 28.
The early detection of cancers can significantly change outcomes even with existing treatments. However, ~50% of cancers still cannot be detected until they reach an advanced stage, highlighting the great challenges in the early detection. Here, an ultrasensitive deep near-infrared (dNIR) nanoprobe that is successively responsive to tumor acidity and hypoxia is reported. It is demonstrated that the new nanoprobe specifically detects tumor hypoxia microenvironment based on deep NIR imaging in ten different types of tumor models using cancer cell lines and patient-tissue derived xenograft tumors. By combining the acidity and hypoxia specific two-step signal amplification with a deep NIR detection, the reported nanoprobe enables the ultrasensitive visualization of hundreds of tumor cells or small tumors with a size of 260 µm in whole-body imaging or 115 µm metastatic lesions in lung imaging. As a result, it reveals that tumor hypoxia can occur as early as the lesions contain only several hundred cancer cells.
癌症的早期检测即使在现有治疗方法下也能显著改变结果。然而，仍有~50%的癌症直到发展到晚期才被发现，这凸显了早期检测的巨大挑战。在这里，报道了一种对肿瘤酸度和缺氧具有连续响应能力的超灵敏深近红外（dNIR）纳米探针。结果表明，该新型纳米探针基于使用癌细胞系和患者组织衍生的异种移植瘤的十种不同类型肿瘤模型的深近红外成像，特异性地检测肿瘤缺氧微环境。通过将酸度和缺氧特异性的两步信号放大与深近红外检测相结合，所报道的纳米探针能够在全身成像中对数百个肿瘤细胞或大小为 260µm 的小肿瘤，或在肺部成像中对 115µm 的转移性病变进行超灵敏可视化。结果表明，肿瘤缺氧早在病变仅包含几百个癌细胞时就可能发生。
