AND-gate contrast agents for enhanced fluorescence-guided surgery.

ABSTRACT: Surgical resection of tumours requires precisely locating and defining the margins between lesions and normal tissue. However, this is made difficult by irregular margin borders. Although molecularly targeted optical contrast agents can be used to define tumour margins during surgery in real time, the selectivity of the contrast agents is often limited by the target being expressed in both healthy and tumour tissues. Here, we show that AND-gate optical imaging probes that require the processing of two substrates by multiple tumour-specific enzymes produce a fluorescent signal with significantly improved specificity and sensitivity to tumour tissue. We evaluated the performance of the probes in mouse models of mammary tumours and of metastatic lung cancer, as well as during fluorescence-gui

SUBMITTER: Widen JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7969380 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature