Abstract
Malignant brain cancers derived from the cerebral parenchyma are difficult to remove completely due to the impossibility of eliminating the entire cancerous area, thus the eradicating brain cancer at the cellular level is strongly desired in order to obtain a good prognosis. In this study, we assessed the efficiency of Quantum Dots (QDs) conjugated with Transferrin (Tf) (QDs-Tf) for specific imaging of cancer cells. The expression of Transferrin Receptor (TfR) was confirmed on the surface of U87 cells (human glioblastoma cells, a major type of malignant brain cancer cells) at a high level; however the expression in NHA (a normal human astrocyte cell line) was extremally low. The labeling efficiency of U87 cells by QDs-Tf was 99.8%, while that of QDs alone was 8.4%. In addition, the red fluorescence derived from U87 cells labeled with QDs-Tf was clearly detected and the intensity was maintained for at least two days. These data suggest that imaging glioblastoma cells using QDs-Tf is useful for the detecting cancer at the cellular level with clinical applications
Highlights
Quantum dots (QDs), known as semiconductor nanocrystals possess the unique optical properties in comparison to common organic fluorophores [1,2]
We previously addressed the in vivo imaging of transplanted Adipose Tissue-Derived Stem Cells (ASCs) labeled with QDs modified by octa-arginine (R8) or cationic liposomes, Lipofectamine®, and succeeded in observing the behavior and quantifying the rate of accumulation of transplanted cells in major organs [11,12,13]
Normal Human Astrocytes (NHA) and U87 cells were investigated with respect to whether the transferrin receptor is expressed on their surface using fluorescein-Tf
Summary
Quantum dots (QDs), known as semiconductor nanocrystals possess the unique optical properties in comparison to common organic fluorophores [1,2]. QDs are less affected by chemical modification on their surface [1]. According to these luminescence properties, QDs are used as fluorescent agents in various diagnostic tests, such as ELISA (Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay) to detect minor components and perform fluorescent immunostaining [8,9]. Highly selective labeling using QDs of cancer cells with high-grade a malignancy and metastatic nature is expected to enable clinicians to detect cancer cells at early stages and increase the rate of successful surgery [14,15,16,17,18]
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