RESUMO
Objective To study the tumor targeting ability and application of farnesylthiosalicylic Acid (FTS) and heptamethine carbocyanine fluorescent dye-mediated near-infrared imagine in living animals, and confirm the inhibitory effect of this compound on growth of tumor cells.Methods Human breast cancer cell line MCF-7, glioma cell line U251 and prostate cancer cell line PC3 were cultured to logarithmic growth phase, and different concentrations of FTS and FTS-IR783 were added, respectively.We observed the inhibitory effect of those two compounds on the growth of tumor cells.Under fluorescence microscopy, specific accumulation of FTS-IR783 in these tumor cells was observed.The tumor cells (1×106) were transplanted subcutaneously into nude mice.These mice were subjected to intraperitoneal injection of FTS-IR783 (10 nmol/mouse) two weeks later.In the in vivo imaging, near infrared fluorescence signal and tumor volume were measured and their correlation was analyzed.Results Compared with FTS, FTS-IR783 significantly inhibited the growth of MCF-7, U251 and PC3 cells in vitro.FTS-IR783 was specifically uptaken by these three kinds of tumor cells, showing strong near infrared fluorescence in cell agglomerates.After subcutaneous injection of FTS-IR783, the correlation between fluorescence intensity and tumor volume was 0.987, 0.998 and 0.971, respectively.Conclusions The compound of FTS conjugated with near infrared fluorescent dye IR-783 can specifically recognize tumor cells, in both in vitro and in vivo imaging.At the same time, the compound can significantly inhibit the growth of tumor cells, and may be expected to become a new potential targeted drug.