Nanomedicine and Early Cancer Diagnosis: Molecular Imaging using Fluorescence Nanoparticles

Abstract

: Incorporating nanotechnology into fluorescent imaging and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has shown promising potentials for accurate diagnosis of cancer at earlier stage than the conventional imaging modalities. Molecular imaging (MI) aims to quantitatively characterize, visualize, and measure the biological processes or living cells at molecular and genetic levels. MI modalities have been exploited in different applications including noninvasive determination and visualization of diseased tissues, cell trafficking visualization, early detection, treatment response monitoring, and in vivo visualization of living cells. High affinity molecular probe and imaging modality to detect the probe are the two main requirements of MI. Recent advances in nanotechnology and allied modalities, have facilitated the use of nanoparticles (NPs) as MI probes. Within the extensive group of NPs, fluorescent NPs play a prominent role in optical molecular imaging. The fluorescent NPs used in molecular and cellular imaging can be categorized into three main groups including quantum dots (QDs), upconversion, and dye-doped NPs. Fluorescent NPs have great potentials in targeted theranostics including cancer imaging, immunoassay based cells, proteins and bacteria detections, imaging-guided surgery and therapy. Fluorescent NPs have shown promising potentials for drug and gene delivery, detection of the chromosomal abnormalities, labeling of DNA, and visualizing DNA replication dynamics. Multifunctional NPs have been successfully used in a single theranostic modality integrating diagnosis and therapy. The unique characteristics of multifunctional NPs make them potential theranostic agents that can be utilized concurrently for diagnosis and therapy. This review provides state of the art of the nanotechnological applications for early cancer diagnosis focusing on fluorescent NPs, their synthesis methods and perspectives in clinical theranostics.

The Advances and Biomedical Applications of Imageable Nanomaterials

“…Nanomaterials have the characteristics such as ultrasound, optics and magnetism, which can be used to diagnose and treat diseases. The long blood circulation time and tissue specificity of nanomaterials improved the specificity and sensitivity of imaging, which in turn contributed to the early diagnosis of diseases ( Truffi et al, 2016 ; Xiong et al, 2019 ; Jin et al, 2020 ). And multiple imaging techniques have been demonstrated to improve the accuracy of tumor metastasis rate in sentinel lymph node biopsy, such as PAI ( Stoffels et al, 2015 ).…”

“…Radiolabeled nanomaterials showed great advantages in the early diagnosis of cancers due to their deep penetration and high sensitivity ( Ge et al, 2020 ). Nanomaterials with fluorescent imaging properties were widely used in molecular labeling, which displayed molecular dynamics and tracked specific biomarkers, indicating a great potential in the early diagnosis of cancers ( Jin et al, 2020 ). In addition, the surface modification properties such as high-temperature, acid and alkali resistance of nanomaterials made an early diagnosis of cancers in some special parts such as the stomach possible ( Truffi et al, 2016 ).…”

Engineered CRISPR-Cas systems for the detection and control of antibiotic-resistant infections

“…In addition to the great potential of nanoparticles to participate in the targeted delivery of CRISPR-Cas systems as antimicrobial agents, they also have significant application value in the design and development of biological diagnostic tools based on CRISPR-Cas systems. In recent years, research on nucleic acid probes based on nanoparticles has become a focus, facilitating substantial progress in the diagnosis of viruses [ 174 – 176 ], cancers [ 177 , 178 ], and pathogens [ 179 , 180 ].…”

Radiolabeling, Quality Control and In Vivo Imaging of Multimodal Targeted Nanomedicines

“…For cancer imaging with NMs, three types of modalities are available, including magnetic resonance (MRI), optical and nuclear imaging [15,16]. Among them, MRI is based on the use of innately magnetic NPs such as SPIONs and optical imaging refers to the incorporation of a fluorescent dye onto NPs or the use of innately fluorescent materials such as quantum dots to construct NPs [17,18]. The last type of imaging is nuclear imaging, which comprises the functionalization of NMs with radionuclides for molecular imaging such as positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) [16].…”