Novel iodinated gold nanoclusters for precise diagnosis of thyroid cancer

As the most common endocrine malignancy with a high incidence, thyroid cancer lacks a dual-modal imaging method for precise diagnosis. An accurate and multimodal imaging system is pivotal to solve this problem. Herein, dual-modality fluorescence/Computed Tomography (CT) iodinated gold nanoclusters for malignant thyroid cancer visualization have been recently fabricated. In this study, innovative iodinated gold nanoclusters (AuNCs@BSA-I) were synthesized via Bovine serum albumin (BSA) and chloramine-T. AuNCs@BSA-I not only possess an ultra-small size and brilliant biocompatibility but also exhibit excellent fluorescence/CT imaging properties. Particularly with regard to CT imaging properties, AuNCs@BSA-I rival the clinical CT contrast medium. And the fluorescence emission spectrum of AuNCs@BSA-I falls in the near infrared region (NIR). For further translational application in medicine, we established an orthotopic human thyroid cancer patient tissue derived xenograft (PDX) mouse model, highly close to the actual human thyroid cancer. The results unveil that AuNCs@BSA-I exert sensitive and accurate diagnosis characteristics. To be more specific, the AuNCs@BSA-I fluorescent/CT signals in the thyroid tumor represent characteristics of 'slow in fast out', compared to those in the normal thyroid. Moreover, AuNCs@BSA-I could distinguish minimal thyroid cancer, as small as 2 mm³. Therefore, AuNCs@BSA-I appear to be a promising nanoprobe which could be applied to preclinical medicine.