Presented by Jonathan Lavaud, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher at Optimal Institute for Advanced Bioscience, Grenoble, France.
In vivo molecular imaging is a decisive tool in understanding the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in cancer development, metastasis, and drug development research. Specifically, photoacoustic imaging (PAI) has emerged as a new imaging modality that provides both high optical contrast and high ultrasound resolution at depth in living organisms.
PAI leverages differences in optical absorption in tissue components such as hemoglobin, lipids, melanin, collagen, and water and can also detect exogenous molecules. Although several inorganic contrast agents used for PAI have already been described, the need for fully biocompatible organic molecules that could be used for the in vivo PAI in cancer models still remains. Angiostamp800 is a novel molecular tracer that specifically targets a known membrane receptor involved in tumor angiogenesis.
In this webinar:
- Despite advances in photoacoustic (PA) imaging, few commercially available agents exist for targeting cancer metastasis.
- In light of this, the investigators identified AngiostampTM800 as a multimodal organic contrast agent for targeting tumors due to its ability to bind αvβ3 integrin.
- The Vevo LAZR-X identified AngiostampTM800 labelled tumors in the liver in both early and advanced staged cancer.
- Pharmacokinetics experiments of ICG (a known liver imaging PA agent) vs. AngiostampTM800 found that ICG remained in higher concentrations in the blood while AngiostampTM800 was highest in the liver of the cancer model.
- Whole body imaging, accomplished by a trans-illumination approach on the Vevo LAZR-X, revealed that AngiostampTM800 undergoes hepatic clearance.
- Multi-modal imaging using fDOT, uCT, and the Vevo LAZR-X were used to test if you could co-register AngiostampTM800 signal expression in an aggressive breast cancer cell line.
- All 3 modalities had similar expression patterns in the brain, lymph nodes, bones, dorsal vertebrae, and the kidneys.
- AngiostampTM800 also validated in several other cancer cell lines and selectively identified tumors in prostate cancer, bone cancer, and glioblastoma cell lines.
- Conclusion: PA imaging using the Vevo LAZR-X is non-invasive technology with high resolution in deep tissue to identify functional and molecular information.
- AngiostampTM800 is an organic contrast agent with specificity to tumors expressing αvβ3 integrin and can be used with fluorescent and PA imaging, opening the door for cancer-based imaging.
- Αvβ3 is involved in many pathologies like wound healing, cardiovascular work (atherosclerosis), oncology (angiogenesis), placenta development, and Rheumatoid arthritis. Therefore, AngiostampTM800 could be a novel contrast imaging agent used in many other fields than just oncology.