Biosynthetic protein molecular imaging probe by Tianjin University

Molecular imaging is characterized by the application of molecular probes and is an important type of diagnostic medical imaging, which is helpful for the visual diagnosis of tumors and other diseases.

Recently, the research group of Professor Dayong Yang of Tianjin University has made the latest achievements in diagnostic medical molecular imaging. They used biosynthetic strategies to develop a protein molecular imaging probe that can achieve precise and efficient tumor imaging.

The probe is based on the precise design and assembly of DNA and precise expression in engineered bacteria. It is generated by fusion of tumor targeting peptide (RGD), near-infrared luminescent red fluorescent protein (RFP) and lanthanide ion-binding peptide (LBT). This protein needle molecular imaging probe has excellent RGD-mediated tumor targeting, and has long-term stable infrared fluorescence emission in a wide pH range from acid to alkaline, and can realize sensitive tumor-specific imaging.

In addition, the relaxation rate of magnetic resonance imaging in mouse glioma model was 5.2 times higher than that of commercial gadopentetate meglumine, and showed high spatial resolution tumor imaging effect. At the same time, tumor targeted fluorescence and magnetic resonance dual-mode imaging can provide complementary imaging information, which is conducive to the accurate diagnosis of tumors.

This study proved the feasibility and superiority of biosynthesis strategy to prepare multimodal molecular image probes, and provided a new idea for the design and development of molecular image probes.

Reference: Huaixin Zhao, et al. Biosynthetic molecular imaging probe for tumor-targeted dual-modal fluorescence/magnetic resonance imaging. Biomaterials, 2020.DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2020.120220