Natural product-inspired profluorophores for imaging NQO1 activity in tumour tissues.

Herein we designed a collection of trimethyl-lock quinone profluorophores as activity-based probes for imaging NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase (NQO1) in cancer cells and tumour tissues. Profluorophores were prepared via synthetic routes from naturally-occurring quinones and characterised in vitro using recombinant enzymes, to be further validated in cells and fresh frozen canine tumour tissues as potential new tools for cancer detection and imaging.