Cyclic RGD peptide-labeled upconversion nanophosphors for tumor cell-targeted imaging

One of the great challenges of oncology is to improve methods for early tumor detection. Thus tumor cell-targeted optical imaging has been intensively studied. Bioimaging with upconversion (UC) phosphors (UCPs) is of considerable interest due to a variety of possible applications taking advantage of infrared-to-visible luminescence. Here we report for the first time tumor cell-targeted UC imaging using UCPs modified with cyclic RGD peptide (RGD-Y2O3). Cyclic RGD peptide binds specifically to integrin alphavbeta3 which is highly expressed in a tumor cell surface of certain cancer types but not in normal tissues. Since UC emission from RGD-Y2O3 was observed for U87MG cancer cell (high integrin alphavbeta3 expression), but not for MCF-7 cancer cell (low integrin alphavbeta3 expression), this UC imaging is considered to be integrin alphavbeta3 specific. The non-invasive imaging of integrin alphavbeta3 expression using UCP-based probes will have great potential in cancer imaging in general in living subjects.