Bienzyme-Locked Activatable Fluorescent Probes for Specific Imaging of Tumor-Associated Mast Cells

Tumor-associated mast cells (TAMCs) have been recently revealed to play a multifaceted role in the tumor microenvironment. Noninvasive optical imaging of TAMCs is thus highly desired to gain insights into their functions in cancer immunotherapy. However, due to the lack of a single enzyme that is specific to mast cells, a common probe design approach based on single-enzyme activation is not applicable. Herein, we reported a bienzyme-locked molecular probe (THC_MC) based on a photoinduced electron transfer-intramolecular charge-transfer hybrid strategy for in vivo imaging of TAMCs. The bienzyme-locked activation mechanism ensures that THC_MC exclusively turns on near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence only in the presence of both tryptase and chymase specifically coexpressed by mast cells. Thus, THC_MC effectively distinguishes mast cells from other leukocytes, including T cells, neutrophils, and macrophages, a capability lacking in single-locked probes. Such a high specificity of THC_MC allows noninvasive tracking of the fluctuation of TAMCs in the tumor of living mice during cancer immunotherapy. The results reveal that the decreased intratumoral signal of THC_MC after combination immunotherapy correlates well with the reduced population of TAMCs, accurately predicting the inhibition of tumor growth. Thus, this study not only presents the first NIR fluorescent probe specific for TAMCs but also proposes a generic bienzyme-locked probe design approach for in vivo cell imaging.