卵巢癌是女性健康大敌，而手术后癌细胞的扩散更卵巢癌是女性健康大敌，而手术后癌细胞的扩散更是医学界一直以来面临的难题。据外国媒体11月23日报道，日本科学家近日研制出一种新型荧光试剂，能迅速识别癌细胞，有望解决卵巢癌扩散难题。
开发这款新型荧光试剂的是来自日本国家癌症研究所的久高古林所带领的研究团队，他们的研究成果发表在11月23日的《科学—转化医学》期刊上。卵巢癌极易扩散，即便手术切除癌细胞，往往还会有许多直径小于1毫米的肿瘤留在病人体内。此前用来标记癌细胞的试剂都需要提前注射或者施用，很长时间之后才能起效，但久高古林的研究团队以广泛存在于多种癌细胞中的“γ-谷氨酰转肽酶（GGT）”为切入点研制的新型试剂便可快速起效，识别率高达70%。
实验中，研究人员通过基因改造将实验鼠体内的肿瘤细胞染成荧光红色，然后在肿瘤区域喷涂试剂。约10到20秒后，原先的红色荧光区域便发出了绿色的荧光。此外，这种试剂在使用前完全无色，施用后荧光可以维持两分钟之久。
久高古林认为，与此前的同类产品相比，他们开发的试剂更加方便。“如果需要提前注射的话，实用性就会大打折扣。但这一款新型试剂则完全不同，手术医师可以随时使用。”
目前，久高古林的研究团队正在为下一步将进行的人体实验做准备，也在探寻将这种试剂用于识别其他癌细胞的可能性。来自美国加州大学圣迭戈癌症研究中心的迈克尔·布维博士认为，这个想法“很有吸引力”，有望大大改善卵巢癌手术的效果。(生物谷 Bioon.com)
doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.3002823
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Rapid Cancer Detection by Topically Spraying a γ-Glutamyltranspeptidase–Activated Fluorescent Probe
Urano, Yasuteru; Sakabe, Masayo; Kosaka, Nobuyuki; Ogawa, Mikako; Mitsunaga, Makoto; Asanuma, Daisuke; Kamiya, Mako; Young, Matthew R.; Nagano, Tetsuo; Choyke, Peter L.; Kobayashi, Hisataka
The ability of the unaided human eye to detect small cancer foci or accurate borders between cancer and normal tissue duringsurgery or endoscopy is limited. Fluorescent probes are useful for enhancing visualization of small tumors but are typicallylimited by either high background signal or the requirement for administration hours to days before use. We synthesized arapidly activatable, cancer-selective fluorescence imaging probe, γ-glutamyl hydroxymethyl rhodamine green (gGlu-HMRG), withintramolecular spirocyclic caging for complete quenching. Activation occurs by rapid one-step cleavage of glutamate with γ-glutamyltranspeptidase(GGT), which is not expressed in normal tissue, but is overexpressed on the cell membrane of various cancer cells, thus leadingto complete uncaging and dequenching of the fluorescence probe. In vitro activation of gGlu-HMRG was evident in 11 human ovariancancer cell lines tested. In vivo in mouse models of disseminated human peritoneal ovarian cancer, activation of gGlu-HMRGoccurred within 1 min of topically spraying the tumor, creating high signal contrast between the tumor and the background.The gGlu-HMRG probe is practical for clinical application during surgical or endoscopic procedures because of its rapid andstrong activation upon contact with GGT on the surface of cancer cells.
