title: Optical agents.
abstract: Optical imaging is an emerging modality in the growing field of biomedical diagnostics. The past decade has witnessed the development of a variety of promising strategies for optical imaging techniques. Fundamental to these techniques is the design and application of novel fluorescent markers to allow molecular level in-vivo studies of disease in animal models in the laboratory and eventually in human clinical studies. This review surveys the range of fluorophores employed in these probes and the alternative probe systems in which they are used: non-specific, targeted and activatable; recent developments in the area of fluorescent nanoprobes and multimodality constructs are also reviewed.
authors.affiliation: migenion GmbH, Robert-Koch-Platz 4-8, 10115, Berlin, Germany. licha@migenion.com
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Licha
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schirner
authors.forename: Gavin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Henry
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008958:Models, Molecular; D015336:Molecular Probe Techniques; D015335:Molecular Probes / Q000737:chemistry*; D015394:Molecular Structure; D053758:Nanoparticles; D055095:Optics and Photonics
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D015335:Molecular Probes