Multi-modal Imaging for Cancer Detection and Therapeutic Assessment

Underglycosylated mucin-1 antigen (uMUC-1) is one of the early hallmarks of tumorogenesis in a wide variety of tumors. It is overexpressed in almost all human epithelial cell adenocarcinomas, including more than 90% of breast cancers, pancreatic, colorectal, lung, prostate, colon an gastric carcinomas.

In order to target the uMUC-1 tumor antigen, we synthesized and tested an imaging probe consisted of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (for MR imaging ) modified with near-infrared dye Cy5.5 (for optical imaging) and conjugated to a uMUC-1-targeting peptide (EPPT).

In -vivo MR and optical imaging of uMUC-1 tumor antigen using multi-modal CLIO-EPPT imaging probe:

• Animals with bi-lateral tumors (uMUC-1 positive and uMUC-1 negative)
• Intravenous injection of CLIO-EPPT (10 mg Fe/kg).
• MR imaging was performed before and 24 h after injection of the probe.
• Optical imaging was performed 24 post injection immediately after MR imaging
• Correlative fluorescence microscopy on frozen tumor sections.

CLIO-EPPT was shown to:
1) specifically recognize tumors in vivo,
2) produce high resolution signal on MR images, and
3) allow for real-time continuous data acquisition by NIRF imaging.