Self-assembling supramolecular dendrimer nanosystem for PET imaging of tumors

Philippe Garrigue, Jingjie Tang, Ling Ding, Ahlem Bouhlel, Aura Tintaru, Erik Laurini, Yuanyu Huang, Zhenbin Lyu, Mengjie Zhang, Samantha Fernandez, Laure Balasse, Wenjun Lan, Eric Mas, Domenico Marson, Yuhua Weng, Xiaoxuan Liu, Suzanne Giorgio, Juan Iovanna, Sabrina Pricl, Benjamin GuilletLing Peng*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

67 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Bioimaging plays an important role in cancer diagnosis and treatment. However, imaging sensitivity and specificity still constitute key challenges. Nanotechnology-based imaging is particularly promising for overcoming these limitations because nanosized imaging agents can specifically home in on tumors via the “enhanced permeation and retention” (EPR) effect, thus resulting in enhanced imaging sensitivity and specificity. Here, we report an original nanosystem for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging based on an amphiphilic dendrimer, which bears multiple PET reporting units at the terminals. This dendrimer is able to self-assemble into small and uniform nanomicelles, which accumulate in tumors for effective PET imaging. Benefiting from the combined dendrimeric multivalence and EPR-mediated passive tumor targeting, this nanosystem demonstrates superior imaging sensitivity and specificity, with up to 14-fold increased PET signal ratios compared with the clinical gold reference 2-fluorodeoxyglucose ([ 18 F]FDG). Most importantly, this dendrimer system can detect imaging-refractory low-glucose-uptake tumors that are otherwise undetectable using [ 18 F]FDG. In addition, it is endowed with an excellent safety profile and favorable pharmacokinetics for PET imaging. Consequently, this dendrimer nanosystem constitutes an effective and promising approach for cancer imaging. Our study also demonstrates that nanotechnology based on self-assembling dendrimers provides a fresh perspective for biomedical imaging and cancer diagnosis.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)11454-11459
Number of pages6
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume115
Issue number45
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Nov 2018

Keywords

  • Bioimaging
  • Dendrimer
  • EPR effect
  • Supramolecular nanomicelle
  • Tumor diagnosis

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