Coherent Raman Scattering Microscopy in Oncology Pharmacokinetic Research

Abstract

The high attrition rates of anti-cancer drugs during clinical development remains a bottleneck problem in pharmaceutical industry. This is partially due to the lack of quantitative, selective, and rapid readouts of anti-cancer drug activity in situ with high resolution. Although fluorescence microscopy has been commonly used in oncology pharmacological research, fluorescent labels are often too large in size for small drug molecules, and thus may disturb the function or metabolism of these molecules. Such challenge can be overcome by coherent Raman scattering microscopy, which is capable of chemically selective, highly sensitive, high spatial resolution, and high-speed imaging, without the need of any labeling. Coherent Raman scattering microscopy has tremendously improved the understanding of pharmaceutical materials in the solid state, pharmacokinetics of anti-cancer drugs and nanocarriers in vitro and in vivo. This review focuses on the latest applications of coherent Raman scattering microscopy as a new emerging platform to facilitate oncology pharmacokinetic research.

Efficacy of tyrosine kinase inhibitors examined by a combination of Raman micro-spectroscopy and a deep wavelet scattering-based multivariate analysis framework

“…Raman microscopy has been utilized in numerous biological, therapeutic, and drug discovery applications, as well as in other fields. [22][23][24][25][26] It has enormous potential for differentiating between various cell types and ultimately can screen for cancer cells. [27][28][29] Besides, Raman microscopy has been applied to study cell-drug interactions.…”

Current and Future Advancements of Raman Spectroscopy Techniques in Cancer Nanomedicine

“…Among these techniques, those which are largely employed in cancer diagnosis, staging, and therapy are spontaneous Raman scattering, SERS, SERRS, and SORS. CARS is mainly used for investigating the pharmacokinetics of anticancer drugs and nanocarriers both in vitro and in vivo, because of its high sensitivity and high-speed imaging [ 47 ]. Table 1 summarizes some of the cancer nanotherapies currently being investigated.…”