Updated developments on molecular imaging and therapeutic strategies directed against necrosis

Abstract

Cell death plays important roles in living organisms and is a hallmark of numerous disorders such as cardiovascular diseases, sepsis and acute pancreatitis. Moreover, cell death also plays a pivotal role in the treatment of certain diseases, for example, cancer. Noninvasive visualization of cell death contributes to gained insight into diseases, development of individualized treatment plans, evaluation of treatment responses, and prediction of patient prognosis. On the other hand, cell death can also be targeted for the treatment of diseases. Although there are many ways for a cell to die, only apoptosis and necrosis have been extensively studied in terms of cell death related theranostics. This review mainly focuses on molecular imaging and therapeutic strategies directed against necrosis. Necrosis shares common morphological characteristics including the rupture of cell membrane integrity and release of cellular contents, which provide potential biomarkers for visualization of necrosis and necrosis targeted therapy. In the present review, we summarize the updated joint efforts to develop molecular imaging probes and therapeutic strategies targeting the biomarkers exposed by necrotic cells. Moreover, we also discuss the challenges in developing necrosis imaging probes and propose several biomarkers of necrosis that deserve to be explored in future imaging and therapy research.

Cell-Free DNA: Hope and Potential Application in Cancer

“…Analysis of protein biomarkers and nucleic acids has become very popular for cancer diagnosis (Huang et al, 2020 ), risk stratification, and molecular targeting therapeutics (Zhang D. et al, 2019 ; Wang et al, 2020 ). However, many biomarker studies are based on analysis of tumor tissues that are obtained from invasive surgical procedures and may not be accessible in some cases.…”

WITHDRAWN: Positron Emission Tomographic imaging of tumor cell death using Zirconium-89-labeled APOMAB® following cisplatin chemotherapy in lung and ovarian cancer xenograft models

“…Nevertheless, the sensitivity and speci city of FDG-PET/CT for therapy response monitoring may be limited by such tumor variables as expression of glucose transport exporters [8] or tissue in ammation or infection both of which may also be FDG avid [9]. Therefore, there has been great interest in the eld of molecular imaging to develop selective, robust, and clinically applicable in vivo imaging markers of therapy-induced tumor cell death [10][11][12].…”

Improved non-invasive positron emission tomographic imaging of chemotherapy-induced tumor cell death using Zirconium-89-labeled APOMAB®

“…Conventionally, therapy response monitoring relies on categorizing measurements of predefined changes in either tumor size (Eisenhauer et al 2009) or tumor FDG uptake by PET (Wahl et al 2009;Peacock et al 2019). However, given that tumor cell death is a desired endpoint of anticancer therapies, specific and robust in vivo measures are being intensively investigated preclinically and clinically (Smith and Smith 2012;Zhang et al 2019;Zhang et al 2020). Among the cited in vivo tumor cell death detection technologies is the mAb DAB4.…”