Issue 25, 2018

Sonophore-enhanced nanoemulsions for optoacoustic imaging of cancer

Abstract

Optoacoustic imaging offers the promise of high spatial resolution and, at the same time, penetration depths well beyond the conventional optical imaging technologies, advantages that would be favorable for a variety of clinical applications. However, similar to optical fluorescence imaging, exogenous contrast agents, known as sonophores, need to be developed for molecularly targeted optoacoustic imaging. Despite numerous optoacoustic contrast agents that have been reported, there is a need for more rational design of sonophores. Here, using a library screening approach, we systematically identified and evaluated twelve commercially available near-infrared (690–900 nm) and highly absorbing dyes for multi-spectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT). In order to achieve more accurate spectral deconvolution and precise data quantification, we sought five practical mathematical methods, namely direct classical least squares based on UV-Vis (UV/Vis-DCLS) or optoacoustic (OA-DCLS) spectra, non-negative LS (NN-LS), independent component analysis (ICA) and principal component analysis (PCA). We found that OA-DCLS is the most suitable method, allowing easy implementation and sufficient accuracy for routine analysis. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that our biocompatible nanoemulsions (NEs), in combination with near-infrared and highly absorbing dyes, enable non-invasive in vivo MSOT detection of tumors. Specifically, we found that NE-IRDye QC1 offers excellent optoacoustic performance and detection compared to related near-infrared NEs. We demonstrate that when loaded with low fluorescent or dark quencher dyes, NEs represent a flexible and new class of exogenous sonophores suitable for non-invasive pre-clinical optoacoustic imaging.

Graphical abstract: Sonophore-enhanced nanoemulsions for optoacoustic imaging of cancer

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
13 apr 2018
Accepted
14 mei 2018
First published
18 mei 2018
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2018,9, 5646-5657

Sonophore-enhanced nanoemulsions for optoacoustic imaging of cancer

S. Roberts, C. Andreou, C. Choi, P. Donabedian, M. Jayaraman, E. C. Pratt, J. Tang, C. Pérez-Medina, M. Jason de la Cruz, W. J. M. Mulder, J. Grimm, M. Kircher and T. Reiner, Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 5646 DOI: 10.1039/C8SC01706A

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