RESUMO
The development of minimally invasive surgery has greatly advanced precision tumor surgery, but sometimes suffers from restricted visualization of the surgical field, especially during the removal of abdominal tumors. A 3-D inspection of tumors could be achieved by intravenously injecting tumor-selective fluorescent probes, whereas most of which are unable to instantly distinguish tumors via in situ spraying, which is urgently needed in the process of surgery in a convenient manner. In this study, we have designed an injectable and sprayable fluorescent nanoprobe, termed Poly-g-BAT, to realize rapid tumor imaging in freshly dissected human colorectal tumors and animal models. Mechanistically, the incorporation of γ-glutamyl group facilitates the rapid internalization of Poly-g-BAT, and these internalized nanoprobes can be subsequently activated by intracellular NAD(P)H: quinone oxidoreductase-1 to release near-infrared fluorophores. As a result, Poly-g-BAT can achieve a superior tumor-to-normal ratio (TNR) up to 12.3 and enable a fast visualization (3 min after in situ spraying) of tumor boundaries in the xenograft tumor models, Apcmin/+ mice models and fresh human tumor tissues. In addition, Poly-g-BAT is capable of identifying minimal premalignant lesions via intravenous injection. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.