title: Near-infrared fluorescent peptide probes for imaging of tumor in vivo and their biotoxicity evaluation.
abstract: Optical imaging techniques are becoming increasingly urgent for the early detection and monitoring the progression of tumor development. However, tumor vasculature imaging has so far been largely unexplored because of the lack of suitable optical probes. In this study, we demonstrated the preparation of near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent RGD peptide probes for noninvasive imaging of tumor vasculature during tumor angiogenesis. The peptide optical probes combined the advantages of NIR emission and RGD peptide, which possesses minimal biological absorption and specially targets the integrin, which highly expressed on activated tumor endothelial cells. In vivo optical imaging of nude mice bearing pancreatic tumor showed that systemically delivered NIR probes enabled us to visualize the tumors at 24 hours post-injection. In addition, we have performed in vivo toxicity study on the prepared fluorescent RGD peptide probes formulation. The blood test results and histological analysis demonstrated that no obvious toxicity was found for the mice treated with RGD peptide probes for two weeks. These studies suggest that the NIR fluorescent peptide probes can be further designed and employed for ultrasensitive fluorescence imaging of angiogenic tumor vasculature, as well as imaging of other pathophysiological processes accompanied by activation of endothelial cells.
authors.affiliation: School of Science, Changchun University of Science and Technology, Changchun, 130022, China.
authors.forename: Liwei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Translational Medicine of Tumor and the Key Lab of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.
authors.forename: Guimiao
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Wing-Cheung
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Law
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
authors.forename: Ken-Tye
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Yong
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002232:Carbocyanines / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000633:toxicity; D005260:Female; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000633:toxicity; D008819:Mice, Nude; D009389:Neovascularization, Pathologic / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D009842:Oligopeptides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000633:toxicity; D061848:Optical Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D010179:Pancreas / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000473:pathology; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared
chemical_list: C098793:CY5.5 cyanine dye; D002232:Carbocyanines; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D009842:Oligopeptides; C047981:arginyl-glycyl-aspartic acid
keywords: RGD peptide; angiogenesis; fluorescence imaging; pancreatic cancer