Hypoxia plays an important role in
cancer progression, which is a characteristic feature of the
tumor micro-environment and reflects the invasiveness of
tumor cells.
Nitroreductase (NTR) is overexpressed in hypoxic
tumors, which making it an efficient target for detecting the hypoxic state in
tumor. In this work, a new type of nitro-based
fluorescent probe, named HNT-NTR, has been proposed, HNT-NTR could detect specifically and rapidly the NTR degree, which reflects the level of
hypoxia in bidimensional (2D)
tumor cells, three-dimensional (3D)
tumor spheres and even the real
tumors in vivo without biological toxicity. Most importantly, according to the research, HNT-NTR even could distinguish
tumor cells from other normal cells in vivo and reflect the invasiveness of
tumor cells by the near-infrared fluorescence intensity, which provides a new way of clinical pathologic diagnosis. All in all, HNT-NTR not only is proven to be an ideal probe for detecting solid
tumors in vivo, but also has great potential to distinguish if cells are benign or malignant and even guide therapeutic applications in the clinic.