Molecular optical imaging: Applications leading to the development of present day therapeutics

Abstract

Summary:A number of advances in the molecular imaging field have led to the sensing of specific molecular targets and pathways in living animals. In the optical imaging field, these include the designing of biocompatible near-infrared fluorochromes, development of targeted and activatable "smart" imaging probes, and engineering of activatable fluorescent and bioluminescent proteins. The current advances in molecular optical imaging will help in early disease diagnoses, functioning of a number of pathways and finally help speed drug discovery. In this review, we will describe the near infrared fluorescent and bioluminescence imaging modalities and how these techniques have been employed in current research. Furthermore, we will also shed some light on the use of these imaging modalities in neurotherapeutics, for example imaging different parameters of vector-mediated gene expression in glioma tumors and stem cell tracking in vivo.

The binding characteristics of a cyclic nonapeptide, c(CGRRAGGSC), in LNCaP human prostate cancer cells

“…Kang et al revealed that the signaling pathway of IL-11 has a significant role in the bone metastasis of cancer, therefore bone metastasis may be specifically accelerated by raising the expression level of IL-11 (16). Other relevant studies have also demonstrated that IL-11 is closely associated with the occurrence and development of bone metastasis (17). Therefore, by employing an artificially synthesized nonapeptide as the ligand and determining its binding characteristics with human prostate cancer LNCaP cells, this study aimed to investigate the possibility of a nonapeptide as the specific external ligand of LNCaP cells in order to provide evidence for further studies.…”

Optical imaging of bacterial infection models

“…A major advantage with bioluminescent bacteria is the inherently low background signal that is emitted by the host animal. However, the emission spectrum is generally quite broad and only a small percentage extends beyond 600 nm, which means that tissue penetration is limited (perhaps 2-3 cm) [4,5]. A related problem is that light scattering is wavelength dependent, and signal intensity changes quickly with depth of sample (usually there is a tenfold loss of signal intensity with each centimeter of tissue depth), which means that it is quite challenging to make accurate quantitative comparisons between different imaging sites.…”

Current Optical Imaging Techniques for Brain Tumor Research: Application of in vivo Laser Scanning Microscopy Imaging with a Cranial Window System

“…NIRF imaging uses near-infrared fluorophores, whether the reflectance technique is applied or not. Because NIRF (650-900 nm) penetrates deeper into tissue than luminescence (Shah & Weissleder, 2005) and does not require cellular transfection, NIRF imaging is regarded as a more effective technique for brain tumor studies than that of BLI. However, because data acquisition is based on a two-dimensional planar image, NIRF imaging is limited for 3D reconstruction.…”