Abstract
Molecular imaging probes for biomarker-based diagnosis typically target, with limited sensitivity, a single molecular process or event in a complex biological system. Here, we show that the macromolecular near-infrared poly(ethylene glycol)-conjugated iridium (iii) complex can be designed to successively respond to tumour acidity and hypoxia while amplifying detection sensitivity via signal propagation. We used the probe to detect, by near-infrared imaging, primary tumours and metastatic tumour nodules as small as 1 mm in mice, and to measure the in vivo metabolic rate of cancer cells. We anticipate that probes for imaging coupled biological events with amplified detection sensitivity will offer opportunities for enhanced molecular diagnostics and image-guided biomedical applications.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 51690153, 21474045 and 51422303), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education, and the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (PCSIRT), Ministry of Education of China.
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X.Z., H.M. and X.J. conceived and designed the research. X.Z., D.H. and W.W. performed the experiments. X.Z., H.M., X.J. and B.L. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. X.J. supervised the project.
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Zheng, X., Mao, H., Huo, D. et al. Successively activatable ultrasensitive probe for imaging tumour acidity and hypoxia. Nat Biomed Eng 1, 0057 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-017-0057
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-017-0057
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