Emerging applications of fluorescent nanocrystals quantum dots for micrometastases detection

Abstract

The occurrence of metastases is one of the main causes of death in many cancers and the main cause of death for breast cancer patients. Micrometastases of disseminated tumour cells and circulating tumour cells are present in more than 30% of breast cancer patients without any clinical or even histopathological signs of metastasis. Low abundance of these cell types in clinical diagnostic material dictates the necessity of their enrichment prior to reliable detection. Current micrometastases detection techniques are based on immunocytochemical and molecular methods suffering from low efficiency of tumour cells enrichment and observer-dependent interpretation. The use of highly fluorescent semiconductor nanocrystals, also known as "quantum dots" and nanocrystal-encoded microbeads tagged with a wide panel of antibodies against specific tumour markers offers unique possibilities for ultra-sensitive micrometastases detection in patients' serum and tissues. The nanoparticle-based diagnostics provides an opportunity for highly sensitive parallel quantification of specific proteins in a rapid and low-cost method, thereby providing a link between the primary tumour and the micrometastases for early diagnosis.

Nanotechnology and molecular cytogenetics: the future has not yet arrived

“…Using this technique, the surgeon is provided with visual guidance during SLN mapping that minimises incision and dissection inaccuracies, enabling real-time confirmation of complete resection (67). Despite the challenges for QD technology, cancer research has already made extensive use of QD applications for in-vivo tumour cell imaging (68–71), surgical oncology (72) and metastasis detection (73). …”

Nanotechniques in proteomics: Current status, promises and challenges

“…QDs have found wide applicability for cancer biomarker detection in patients' sera and tissues (Mahmoud et al, 2010). Nanoparticle probes based on semiconductor QDs, used for cancer targeting and imaging of human prostate cancer cells (Gao et al, 2004), have opened up novel opportunities for in vivo molecular imaging (Fig.…”

Quantum Dots for Molecular Diagnostics of Tumors

“…7 ). The use of targeted QDs as fluorophores, in combination with modern optical imaging methods, allows to perform imaging of not only solid tumors, but also metastases in organs [65] and bone tissue [58] and to reveal micrometastases at the early stages of the disease [81]. It should be noted that in all cases, along with successfullabeling of tumors in vivo using both the active and passive mechanisms, nonspecific accumulation of QDs in different organs of model animals was observed, primarily, in the liver, spleen, and lymph nodes ( Fig.…”