In Situ Generated Novel 1H MRI Reporter for β-Galactosidase Activity Detection and Visualization in Living Tumor Cells

• Main Authors: Shuo Gao, Lei Zhao, Zhiqiang Fan, Vikram D. Kodibagkar, Li Liu, Hanqin Wang, Hong Xu, Mingli Tu, Bifu Hu, Chuanbin Cao, Zhenjian Zhang, Jian-Xin Yu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-07-01
• Series: Frontiers in Chemistry
• Subjects: β-galactosidase detection; responsive Fe-based 1H-MRI agent; T1 and T2 relaxation mapping; in vitro1H-MRI imaging; lacZ gene reporter; synthesis
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2021.709581/full

For wide applications of the lacZ gene in cellular/molecular biology, small animal investigations, and clinical assessments, the improvement of noninvasive imaging approaches to precisely assay gene expression has garnered much attention. In this study, we investigate a novel molecular platform in which alizarin 2-O-β-d-galactopyranoside AZ-1 acts as a lacZ gene/β-gal responsive 1H-MRI probe to induce significant 1H-MRI contrast changes in relaxation times T1 and T2in situ as a concerted effect for the discovery of β-gal activity with the exposure of Fe3+. We also demonstrate the capability of this strategy for detecting β-gal activity with lacZ-transfected human MCF7 breast and PC3 prostate cancer cells by reaction-enhanced 1H-MRI T1 and T2 relaxation mapping.