Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 28, 2019; 25(24): 3030-3043
Published online Jun 28, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i24.3030
Development and in vitro study of a bi-specific magnetic resonance imaging molecular probe for hepatocellular carcinoma
Xiao-Hong Ma, Shuang Wang, Si-Yun Liu, Kun Chen, Zhi-Yuan Wu, Deng-Feng Li, Yong-Tao Mi, Long-Bin Hu, Zhong-Wei Chen, Xin-Ming Zhao
Xiao-Hong Ma, Shuang Wang, Deng-Feng Li, Yong-Tao Mi, Long-Bin Hu, Xin-Ming Zhao, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, National Cancer Center/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, China
Si-Yun Liu, Zhong-Wei Chen, GE Healthcare (China), Beijing 100176, China
Kun Chen, Zhi-Yuan Wu, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Oncology, National Cancer Center/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, China
Author contributions: Ma XH, Wang S, and Zhao XM designed the research; Ma XH, Liu SY, Chen K, Wu ZY, Li DF, Mi YT, Hu LB, and Chen ZW performed the research; Ma XH and Liu SY contributed new reagents or analytic tools; Ma XH, Liu SY, and Chen K analyzed the data and wrote the paper.
Supported by CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences, No. 2016-I2M-1-001; PUMC Youth Fund, No. 2017320010; Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Research Fund, No. ZZ2016B01; and Beijing HopeRun Special Fund of Cancer Foundation of China, No. LC2016B15.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the ethics committee of National Cancer Center/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of the paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Data sharing statement: No additional data is available.
Corresponding author: Xin-Ming Zhao, BM BCh, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, National Cancer Center/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, No. 17, Panjiayuan Nanli, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100021, China. zhaoxinming@cicams.ac.cn
Telephone: +86-10-87787526 Fax: +86-10-87788836
Received: February 25, 2019
Peer-review started: February 25, 2019
First decision: March 20, 2019
Revised: April 3, 2019
Accepted: May 18, 2019
Article in press: May 18, 2019
Published online: June 28, 2019
Core Tip

Core tip: The single targeting of existing hepatocellular carcinoma-targeted magnetic resonance imaging (HCC-targeted MRI) probes may weaken the detection efficiency due to biomarker associated tumor heterogeneity. Here, double antibody-conjugated ultra-small superparamagnetic iron nanoparticles (USPIO) were synthesized to simultaneously target HCC markers of alpha- fetoprotein (AFP) and glypican-3 (GPC3) antigens in Hepa1-6/GPC3 cells. Such probe showed higher cancer cell labeling efficiency than singly- or non-targeted USPIO probes by Prussian blue staining and in vitro MRI, indicating enhanced specificity and sensitivity of MRI diagnosis for micro hepatocellular carcinoma (MHCC). Meanwhile, USPIO with a small core (~5 nm) and hydrodynamic size (~60 nm) after antibody labelling may undergo slow phagocytosis, which could enhance liver tumor MRI contrast in the animal or clinical trial study.