A self-assembling amphiphilic dendrimer nanotracer for SPECT imaging
Ling Ding, Zhenbin Lyu, Aura Tintaru, Erik Laurini, Domenico Marson, Beatrice Louis, Ahlem Bouhlel, Laure Balasse, Samantha Fernandez, Philippe Garrigue, Eric Mas, Suzanne Giorgio, Sabrina Pricl, Benjamin Guillet, Ling Peng
Chem. Commun. 2019, doi: 10.1039/c9cc07750b
Bioimaging plays an important role in cancer diagnosis and treatment, and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is the most prevalent imaging modality in clinic. Nanotechnology-based imaging is particularly promising for tumor imaging because nanosized imaging agents can specifically home in on tumors via the “Enhanced Permeability and Retention (EPR)” effect, thus resulting in enhanced imaging sensitivity and specificity. In this work, we report an original supramolecular nanosystem for SPECT imaging based on an amphiphilic dendrimer which bears multiple SPECT reporting units at the terminals (see Figure below). This dendrimer is able to self-assemble into small and uniform nanomicelles, which accumulate in tumors for effective SPECT imaging. Benefiting from the combined dendrimeric multivalence and EPR-mediated passive tumor targeting, this dendrimer nanosystem constitutes an effective and promising approach for cancer imaging. The work present in this paper alongside our previous studies on positron emission tomography (PET) and drug delivery, highlight that the supramolecular nanosystems formed from self-assembling dendrimers have great potential as novel and robust platforms for various biomedical applications.
This is a collaborative work between Centre Interdisciplinaire de Nanoscience de Marseille (CINaM) and Centre Européen de Recherche en Imagerie Médicale (CERIMED) at Aix-Marseille University together with Institute de Chemie Radicale (ICR), Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Marseille (CRCM) and Triest University in Italy.
Figure 1 : Schematic illustration of the supramolecular dendrimer nanosystem, based on a self-assembling amphiphilic dendrimer bearing radionuclide terminals, for single photon emission computed tomographic (SPECT) imaging of tumors.
Contact :
Dr. Ling Peng, Email: ling.peng@univ-amu.fr
Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Centre Interdisciplinaire de Nanoscience de Marseille (CINaM) UMR 7325, Equipe Labellisé par La Ligue, Marseille, France