Publications: Tumor Imaging with IRDye® 800CW 2-DG

Deadmaus
IRDye 800CW 2-DG Optical Probe (10 nmol) was used to detect subcutaneous A431 tumors. Probe signal is displayed in pseudo color and is merged with a grey scale white light image of the mouse.

Cancer cells are often characterized by an elevated rate of glycolysis. This observation forms the basis for positron emission tomography (PET) using glucose analogues such as 18F-2-deoxy-D-glucose (18FDG) to visualize primary tumors and their metastasis.

IRDye 800CW 2-DG is a fluorescent optical imaging agent that has been shown to be reactive with implanted tumors derived from a number of cell lines including A431, SW620, 3T3-L1, and PC3LMN4. An example is shown in Figure 1. The optical agent exhibits the expected dose response with increasing concentrations of the agent in both cell-based and animal experiments.

Uptake of the agent can be effectively blocked with either unlabeled 2-DG or glucose, confirming its specificity. While these data implicate GLUT proteins in the movement of the agent into the cell, considering IRDye 800CW 2-DG is about three times larger than glucose, it is unlikely that the fluorophore-tagged probe passes through the intramembrane channel but rather enters by endocytosis of the GLUT1/probe complexes1.

1Characterization and Performance of a Near-Infrared 2-Deoxyglucose Optical Imaging Agent for Mouse Cancer Models
Joy L. Kovar*, William Volcheck, Eva Sevick-Muraca, Melanie A. Simpson, D. Michael Olive
Analytical Biochemistry, Vol. 384 (2009) 254-262.