Targeted Optical Imaging Agents in Cancer: Focus on Clinical Applications

Abstract

Molecular imaging is an emerging strategy for in vivo visualization of cancer over time based on biological mechanisms of disease activity. Optical imaging methods offer a number of advantages for real-time cancer detection, particularly in the epithelium of hollow organs and ducts, by using a broad spectral range of light that spans from visible to near-infrared. Targeted ligands are being developed for improved molecular specificity. These platforms include small molecule, peptide, affibody, activatable probes, lectin, and antibody. Fluorescence labeling is used to provide high image contrast. This emerging methodology is clinically useful for early cancer detection by identifying and localizing suspicious lesions that may not otherwise be seen and serves as a guide for tissue biopsy and surgical resection. Visualizing molecular expression patterns may also be useful to determine the best choice of therapy and to monitor efficacy. A number of these imaging agents are overcoming key challenges for clinical translation and are being validated in vivo for a wide range of human cancers.

Image-guided in situ detection of bacterial biofilms in a human prosthetic knee infection model: a feasibility study for clinical diagnosis of prosthetic joint infections

“…Therefore, the development of fast and accurate novel bacteriatargeting diagnostic modalities is desirable. The potential advantages of arthroscopic TFLI in comparison with present Especially in oncological research, pioneering clinical studies have demonstrated the benefits of TFLI-guided detection of cancer, surveillance biopsies, and surgical resection [15,16]. To date, infection imaging with TFLI has never been done in patients but has proven extremely promising in vitro and in vivo [11].…”

Targeted imaging of esophageal adenocarcinoma with a near-infrared fluorescent peptide

“…Firstly, we used an unlabeled SNF peptide as a control to investigate the speci city of SNF peptide to esophageal adenocarcinoma cells based on previous studies(23) and we found SNF-Cy5.5, rather than equal concentration of SNF-Cy5.5 with unlabeled SNF, bound speci cally to esophageal adenocarcinoma in vitro and in vivo. However, Joshi et al stated that development of a scrambled peptide was an alternative as a control (24), which inspired us and We will continue to investigate the scramble peptide in further work. Secondly, In addition, due to unproven safety of NIR uorescent dye Cy5.5, the application of the dye is only limited to the imaging of animal models.…”

“…However, the investigation of the effect of SNF peptide on tumor cell killing was not discussed in our study. So far, compared with speci c antibodies with higher binding a nity, short peptides showed a stronger ability in tumor diagnosis application (24). Short peptides in conjugation with nanoparticles seemed to be promising directions in further applications (26).…”

Pharmacokinetic characterization of fluorocoxib D, a cyclooxygenase-2-targeted optical imaging agent for detection of cancer

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] These imaging platforms include small molecules, peptides, antibodies, nanoparticles, or affibody labeled with fluorescent dyes. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Optimal targeted contrast agents for clinical application must exhibit safe toxicity profile and have rapid tumor uptake, high tumor-to-background ratio, high specificity and sensitivity, as well as long-term stability. 1 Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) protein is induced in inflammatory and cancer cells, but not in normal epithelial cells, [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] which makes COX as an attractive marker in detection of cancer cells.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Optimal targeted contrast agents for clinical application must exhibit safe toxicity profile and have rapid tumor uptake, high tumor-to-background ratio, high specificity and sensitivity, as well as long-term stability. 1 Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) protein is induced in inflammatory and cancer cells, but not in normal epithelial cells, [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] which makes COX as an attractive marker in detection of cancer cells. [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] Derivatives of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) labeled with 5-carboxy-X-rhodamine dyes (fluorocoxibs) (λ ex ¼ 580 nm and λ em ¼ 605 nm) have been synthesized and evaluated as optical imaging agents for detection of COX-2 in cancer cells.…”