Chem. J. Chinese Universities ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (10): 3071.doi: 10.7503/cjcu20210316

• Analytical Chemistry • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Rhodamine Fluorescent Probe for Tumor Targeted Hypoxia-imaging as Intra-operative Navigators

WANG Mengmeng1, LUAN Tianjiao1, YANG Mingyan1, LYU Jiajia1, GAO Jie1, LI Hongyu1, WEI Gang2, YUAN Zeli1()   

  1. 1.School of Pharmacy,Key Laboratory of Basic Pharmacology of Ministry of Education,Key Laboratory of Biocatalysis & Chiral Drug Synthesis of Guizhou Province,International Joint Laboratory of Characteristic Ethnic Medicine of the Ministry of Education,Guizhou International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Base for Medical Photo?Theranostics Technology and Innovative Drug Development,Zunyi Medical University,Zunyi 563000,China
    2.Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation(CSIRO) Manufacturing,NSW 2070,Australia
  • Received:2021-05-07 Online:2021-10-10 Published:2021-10-10
  • Contact: YUAN Zeli E-mail:zlyuan2002@126.com

Abstract:

Determination of tumor boundary during surgery has a great significance to achieving precise resection. The level of tumor hypoxia is closely related to the local concentration of reducing substances such as azobenzene reductases(azoreductases, AzoR, an important class of biocatalysts in solid tumor), AzoR is able to reduce the nitrogen double bond(—N=N—) of azobenzene compounds to generate anilines. Therefore, the characterization might serve as optical AzoR probe during image-guided surgery, which exhibits wide range of application prospects in biomedicine field. In order to obtain a probe for tumor hypoxia fluorescence image-guided surgery with good targeting, low toxicity, good biocompatibility and high specificity, based on the molecular cleavage of azobenzene induced by azoreductase hypoxia and the good fluorescence performance of rhodamine, an “Off-On” type tumor with a specific response to near-infrared azohypoxia was prepared and characterized by chemical coupling. Then we confirmed its fluorescence “Off-On” performance and response mechanism from the molecular level; at the level of L02, 4T1, HeLa, and A549 tumor cells, the toxicity of the tested cell lines and the imaging performance on different hypoxia periods was also investigated. Next, 4T1 tumor model was further constructed, and the performance of tumor in situ injection and tail vein injection fluorescence imaging were studied respectively. Furthermore, the performance of fluorescence imaging-mediated surgery of tumors was further explored. On this basis, the biological safety performance was investigated. The results show that this rhodamine azo probe has high target-specific tumor hypoxia responsiveness and excellent fluorescence imaging-mediated tumor surgery potential, combined with its good photophysical properties, controlled administration time, and biological security, which is expected to provide new research tools for biomedical fluorescence imaging-mediated tumor resection.

Key words: Hypoxia probe, Azoreductase, Fluorescence image, Rhodamine derivatives, Imaging-mediated tumor resection

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