Abstract

Cancer is one of the major causes of mortality and morbidity in our healthcare system. Molecular imaging is an emerging methodology for the early detection of cancer, guidance of therapy, and monitoring of response. The development of new instruments and exogenous molecular probes that can be labeled for multi-modality imaging is critical to this process. Today, molecular imaging is at a crossroad, and new targeted imaging agents are expected to broadly expand our ability to detect and manage cancer. This integrated imaging strategy will permit clinicians to not only localize lesions within the body but also to manage their therapy by visualizing the expression and activity of specific molecules. This information is expected to have a major impact on drug development and understanding of basic cancer biology. At this time, a number of molecular probes have been developed by conjugating various labels to affinity ligands for targeting in different imaging modalities. This review will describe the current status of exogenous molecular probes for optical, scintigraphic, MRI and ultrasound imaging platforms. Furthermore, we will also shed light on how these techniques can be used synergistically in multi-modal platforms and how these techniques are being employed in current research.

Highlights

  • Significant progress has been made in the field of in vivo molecular imaging of cancer due to recent advances in molecular biology, coupled with the rapid development of innovations in imaging instrumentation and probe chemistry

  • This section reviews the key components of exogenous molecular probes including, organic fluorescence dyes, peptides, antibodies, small molecules, and summarizes the different targeting principles associated with the design of these probes

  • Continued progress in our understanding of molecular biology has identified a number of cell surface receptors that can be used as molecular targets

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Summary

Introduction

Significant progress has been made in the field of in vivo molecular imaging of cancer due to recent advances in molecular biology, coupled with the rapid development of innovations in imaging instrumentation and probe chemistry. Various radioisotopes, such as 123I, 99mTc, 64Cu, 111In, 11C, 13N, 15O and 18F for SPECT/PET, supermagnetic or paramagnetic metals for MRI, microbubbles for US, and various visible and near-infrared (NIR) dyes for optical imaging have been developed Most of these compounds, are non-targeted agents that provide non-specific contrast. Researchers have developed multi-modal imaging strategies that combine optical, MR and nuclear processes to enhance validation These integrated techniques aim to confirm observed biological phenomena using independent views and to better delineate the localization and expression of molecular biomarkers. Progress in this field is becoming more advanced due to multi-disciplinary collaborations among chemists, molecular biologists, clinicians, physicists, and imaging scientists. Long term toxic effects generated by tracers of heavy metals, requires long clearance times

Scope of the Review
Optical Imaging
Scintigraphic Imaging
Ultrasound
Multi-Modal Imaging Platform
Molecular Probes for Optical Imaging
Non-specific Optical Contrast Agents
Target Specific Molecular Probes
Conjugates with Peptide Ligands
Conjugates with Antibody Ligands
Conjugates with Small Molecule Ligands
Activatable Probes
Optical Probes Based on Nanoparticles
Molecular Probes for Scintigraphic Imaging
Molecular Probes for MRI
Molecular Probes for US
Dual Labeled Probe for Multi-Modality Imaging
Findings
Summary and Future Prospects
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