Sleeping "Trojan Horse" Provides New Way to Image Diseased Cells

A novel strategy is opening up new avenues for improving medical imaging.

Medical imaging frequently requires getting unnatural materials such as metal ions into cells, a process that is a key challenge across a variety of biomedical disciplines. One method currently used is called the "Trojan horse” in which the drug or imaging agent is attached to something naturally taken up by cells.

The researchers, from the schools of chemistry and biosciences at Cardiff University (Cardiff, Wales, UK), has taken the technique a step further with the development of a sleeping Trojan horse. The first example of its kind, this delivery system resolves some of the current problems involved in transporting metal ions into cells. It is not itself taken up by cells so does not interfere with natural functions until it is "woken” by the addition of the metal ions. This minimizes the unwanted uptake and need for time-consuming purification linked with the common Trojan horse technique.

The research was led by Dr. Mike Coogan, a senior lecturer in synthetic chemistry, along with the article's first author, Flora Thorp-Greenwood. Dr. Coogan said, "The sleeping Trojan horse process happens rapidly, and the vessel is capable of carrying metals which have positron-emitting isotopes, so it has potential for use in bimodal fluorescence and PET [positron emission tomography] imaging. Combined agents for these types of imaging are known but rare, so this is an important development in the field. There is also additional potential for use in radiotherapy as the metal-bearing form not only enters cells but also localizes in the nucleolus. In principle, the concept could also be used to improve delivery of a huge range of drugs and imaging agents into cells or the body.”

The study was published February 2011 in the advanced article section of the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal Chemical Communications.

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