The bright future of nanotechnology in lymphatic system imaging and imaging-guided surgery

Abstract

Lymphatic system is identified the second vascular system after the blood circulation in mammalian species, however the research on lymphatic system has long been hampered by the lack of comprehensive imaging modality. Nanomaterials have shown the potential to enhance the quality of lymphatic imaging due to the unparalleled advantages such as the specific passive targeting and efficient co-delivery of cocktail to peripheral lymphatic system, ease molecular engineering for precise active targeting and prolonged retention in the lymphatic system of interest. Multimodal lymphatic imaging based on nanotechnology provides a complementary means to understand the kinetics of lymphoid tissues and quantify its function. In this review, we introduce the established approaches of lymphatic imaging used in clinic and summarize their strengths and weaknesses, and list the critical influence factors on lymphatic imaging. Meanwhile, the recent developments in the field of pre-clinical lymphatic imaging are discussed to shed new lights on the design of new imaging agents, the improvement of delivery methods and imaging-guided surgery strategies. Graphical Abstract

A Facile and Highly Efficient Approach to Obtain a Fluorescent Chromogenic Porous Organic Polymer for Lymphatic Targeting Imaging

“…Although there remain some disputes in this regard, hyaluronic acid (HA) with negative charge plays a positive role in the lymphatic targeting effect. Besides the factors mentioned above, the sites of subcutaneous injection also play an important role in lymphatic targeting [ 46 ]. In order to realize the targeted fluorescence recognition of the cancer cell, we first modified the surface of the polymer particles with hyaluronic acid through esterification reaction, and the ICG uptake of ICG-POP-HA was calculated to be ~122 mg g −1 ( Figures S3 and S4 ).…”

Ultrabright AIEdots with tunable narrow emission for multiplexed fluorescence imaging

“…Numerous luminescent probes, especially luminescent nanoprobes are widely used for uorescence imaging of lymph nodes in vivo. [57][58][59][60][61][62][63] To further reveal the imaging capabilities of the as-fabricated probes in vivo, NE-AIEdots were then applied in multiplexed lymphography. PFdots, SQdots, PcSidots, and MNE-AIEdots were separately administered by subcutaneous injection (0.5 mg mL −1 , 25 mL) on footpads of nude mice (Fig.…”

Fluorescent Tracers for In Vivo Imaging of Lymphatic Targets

“…The development of new NIR-II fluorophores is of considerable interest and has been the topic of multiple recent reviews (Li et al, 2020a;Zhang et al, 2021a;Yang et al, 2021;Qi et al, 2022;Wu et al, 2022;Yang and Zhang, 2022). The NIR-II window (1,000-1,700 nm) has been sub-divided into two optimized windows of NIR-IIa (1,300-1,400 nm) and NIR-IIb (1,500-1,700 nm), which avoid the peak absorbance of water at ~1,450 nm (Li et al, 2020a).…”

“…NIR-II fluorophores are broadly divided into organic and inorganic materials. The benefit of inorganic nanomaterials is their photostability and tunable nature, in terms of structure, size, and functional groups, but they often show poorer biocompatibility compared to organic dyes (Qi et al, 2022). Space prohibits a complete review of studies that have investigated NIR-II fluorophores for lymphatic imaging but instead here we will highlight some general strategies for lymphatic imaging using some recent examples.…”