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Targeted In Vivo Imaging of Microscopic Tumors with Ferritin-based Nanoprobes Across Biological Barriers Changqian Cao,* Xuxia Wang, Yao Cai, Lei Sun, Lanxiang Tian, Hao Wu, Xiaoqing He, Hao Lei, Weifeng Liu, Guanjun Chen, Rixiang Zhu, and Yongxin Pan* One of the major obstacles in clinical cancer intervention is the in vivo detection of tumors at early stages, when the cancer is still confined to the site of origin and timely preventative treatment is possible.[1,2] Advances in nanoparticle-based molecular imaging have greatly enhanced the sensitivity and specificity of imaging modalities for tumor detection. In particular, nanoparticles functionalized with ligands specific for overexpressed cancer cell receptors are targeted to tumors via nanoparticleconjugated contrast agents to amplify the signal of the tumor-tonormal tissue ratio (TNR).[3–6] Conventional nanoparticle-based molecular imaging techniques, however, are not yet sufficiently sensitive to detect tumors with low TNRs, i.e., microscopic carcinomas (
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www.MaterialsViews.com
Targeted In Vivo Imaging of Microscopic Tumors with Ferritin-based Nanoprobes Across Biological Barriers Changqian Cao,* Xuxia Wang, Yao Cai, Lei Sun, Lanxiang Tian, Hao Wu, Xiaoqing He, Hao Lei, Weifeng Liu, Guanjun Chen, Rixiang Zhu, and Yongxin Pan* One of the major obstacles in clinical cancer intervention is the in vivo detection of tumors at early stages, when the cancer is still confined to the site of origin and timely preventative treatment is possible.[1,2] Advances in nanoparticle-based molecular imaging have greatly enhanced the sensitivity and specificity of imaging modalities for tumor detection. In particular, nanoparticles functionalized with ligands specific for overexpressed cancer cell receptors are targeted to tumors via nanoparticleconjugated contrast agents to amplify the signal of the tumor-tonormal tissue ratio (TNR).[3–6] Conventional nanoparticle-based molecular imaging techniques, however, are not yet sufficiently sensitive to detect tumors with low TNRs, i.e., microscopic carcinomas (
