In vivo imaging via a red-emitting fluorescent probe to diagnosing liver cancer or drug-induced liver disease.

Abstract

Leucine aminopeptidase (LAP) as an important proteolytic enzyme, has been mainly found in hepatobiliary cells, and overexpressed in hepatoma cells. Herein, a new highly selective red-emitting fluorescent probe (DCDHF-Ala) for LAP has been synthesized based on 2-dicyanomethyldiene-3-cyano-2, 5-dihydrofuran (DCDHF) as fluorophore, and alanine (Ala) as the detection group. More importantly, it's the first time to use Ala as a reactive group for LAP. DCDHF-Ala has a low detection limit (0.20 U/L), excellent water solubility and cell membrane permeability. In addition, the probe has been successfully applied to fluorescent imaging in cells and zebrafish. It's especially worth mentioning that, DCDHF-Ala has a high biosafety and enables a real-time detection of LAP levels in mice model. What's the most important is that DCDHF-Ala may be an effective tool to qualitatively monitor the upregulation of LAP induced by liver injury and liver cancer.

• Authors: Yuexia Yang, Liang Zhang, Jiajun Li, Jiemin Wang, Ting Cao, Lei Zheng, Yuping Cao, Wenwu Qin, Yun Liu
• Journal: Analytica chimica acta (Anal Chim Acta) Vol. 1168 Pg. 338621 (Jul 11 2021) ISSN: 1873-4324 [Electronic] Netherlands
• PMID: 34051991 (Publication Type: Journal Article)
• Copyright: Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Chemical References

• Fluorescent Dyes

Topics

• Animals
• Chemical and Drug Induced Liver Injury
• Fluorescent Dyes
• Liver Neoplasms (diagnostic imaging)
• Mice
• Optical Imaging
• Zebrafish