Biomedical Imaging of Colorectal Cancer by Near Infrared Fluorescent Nanoparticles

Abstract

In this paper we describe the preparation of novel Near Infrared (NIR) fluorescent nanoparticles for application in medical imaging of colorectal tumors. The nanoparticles are prepared by using only non-covalent binding processes of molecules which are approved for clinical use. The preparation process is based on the precipitation of a polycation, Eudragit-RS, followed by sequential adsorption of a blocking protein, sodium caseinate, NIR fluorescent dye, Indocyanine Green (ICG) and optionally, a targeting molecule, anti-CEA antibody. Fluorescence measurements have shown that these nanoparticles have higher resistance to photobleaching and higher quantum yield relatively to free ICG. Imaging experiments in orthotopic colorectal cancer mice models have shown that these fluorescent nanoparticles are capable of binding to LS174T human colon tumors in vivo with high specificity, even without the targeting molecule. These nanoparticles, composed of all FDA approved materials, open the way to clinical bioimaging and diagnostics of colon cancer.

The feasibility of indocyanine green fluorescence imaging for identifying and assessing the perfusion of parathyroid glands during total thyroidectomy

“…The solution would be to couple the ICG with a protein unique to the parathyroid gland. There have been studies demonstrating that targeted ICG fluorescence was possible by coupling of the dye with CEA in demonstration of colorectal metastases . To our knowledge, however, no such targeted ICG study has been reported about parathyroid imaging.…”

Tumor Targeting Strategies of Smart Fluorescent Nanoparticles and Their Applications in Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment

“…Fluorescence-targeted imaging used FTNPs for the real-time and in situ detection of the tumors by monitoring the fluorescence phenomenon. [260] FTNPs have shown good prospects in the field of tumor diagnosis, such as FL dye-doped NPs, [165,261,262] QDs, [158,263] MNCs, [176,264] UCNPs, [265][266][267] FCNMs, [24,218,268] and semiconductor polymer NPs (SPNPs). [269,270] ICG is the only NIR dye that is FDA approved for clinical use and pharmaceutical applications.…”

Ultrasonic-assisted Kabachnik-Fields reaction for rapid fabrication of AIE-active fluorescent organic nanoparticles

“…The development of fluorescent nanoparticles with high sensitivity, noninvasiveness and fast response is of great scientific value and has important practical implications in bio-imaging and biotechnology in that it offers a direct visualization tool for detecting biological molecules and monitoring biological events in vitro or in vivo. [1][2][3][4][5][6] Various fluorescent nanoparticles that composed of inorganic nanoparticles and organic molecules have been developed over the past few decades. [7][8][9] Inorganic nanoparticles, for example, inorganic semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) have also been used as cell labeling reagents.…”