| First Author | Park GK | Year | 2020 |
| Journal | iScience | Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 4 | Pages | 101006 |
| PubMed ID | 32268281 | Mgi Jnum | J:306792 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6717491 | Doi | 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101006 |
| Citation | Park GK, et al. (2020) Rapid and Selective Targeting of Heterogeneous Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors. iScience 23(4):101006 |
| abstractText | Design of tissue-specific contrast agents to delineate tumors from background tissues is a major unmet clinical need for ultimate surgical interventions. Bioconjugation of fluorophore(s) to a ligand has been mainly used to target overexpressed receptors on tumors. However, the size of the final targeted ligand can be large, >20 kDa, and cannot readily cross the microvasculature to meet the specific tissue, resulting in low targetability with a high background. Here, we report a small and hydrophilic phenoxazine with high targetability and retention to pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. This bioengineered fluorophore permits sensitive detection of ultrasmall (<0.5 mm) ectopic tumors within a few seconds after a single bolus injection, highlighting every tumor in the pancreas from the surrounding healthy tissues with reasonable half-life. The knowledge-based approach and validation used to develop structure-inherent tumor-targeted fluorophores have a tremendous potential to improve treatment outcome by providing definite tumor margins for image-guided surgery. |
