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Design strategy of optical probes for tumor hypoxia imaging

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Abstract

Clinical manifestations of tumors indicate that malignant phenotypes develo** in the hypoxic microenvironment lead to resistance to cancer treatment, rendering chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and photodynamic therapy less sensitive and effective in patients with tumor. Visualizing the oxygen level in the tumor environment has garnered much attention due to its implications in precision tumor therapy. Following the rapid development of biomaterials in nanotechnology, various nanomaterials have been designed to visualize the oxygen levels in tumors. Here, we review recent research on detecting oxygen levels in solid tumors for tumor hypoxia imaging. To monitor the hypoxic level of tumors, two main strategies were investigated: directly detecting oxygen levels in tumors and monitoring the hypoxia-assisted reduced microenvironment. We believe that hypoxia as a tumor-specific microenvironment can be a breakthrough in the clinical treatment of tumors.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019M651598), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51772316), and the Key Program for Basic Research of Shanghai (19JC1415600).

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  1. State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200050, China

    Fengfeng Xue, Jufeng Chen & Hangrong Chen

  2. Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100049, China

    Jufeng Chen

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Xue, F., Chen, J. & Chen, H. Design strategy of optical probes for tumor hypoxia imaging. Sci. China Life Sci. 63, 1786–1797 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-019-1569-4

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