Microenvironment-Responsive Small-Molecule Probe for Pulmonary Fibrosis Detection

  • Anal Chem. 2020 Jan 7;92(1):699-706. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b02264.
Ying Dong  1  2 ,  Xiao-Rong Li  3 ,  Qi Chen  4 ,  Rui-Ying Guo  3 ,  Bi-Xi Tang  1  2 ,  Wei-Juan Kan  1 ,  Wei Zhang  4 ,  Yongzhou Hu  3 ,  Jia Li  1 ,  Yi Zang  1 ,  Xin Li  3
Affiliations
  • 1. State Key Laboratory of Drug Research , Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 201203 , China.
  • 2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100049 , China.
  • 3. College of Pharmaceutical Sciences , Zhejiang University , Hangzhou 310058 , China.
  • 4. Department of Pulmonology , Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine , Shanghai , 201203 , China.
PMID: 31789017 DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b02264
Abstract

Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a fatal disease with increasing prevalence. Nonradioactive and noninvasive diagnosis of PF at an early stage can improve the prognosis but represents a daunting challenge. Up-regulation of nitric oxide (NO) is a typical microenvironmental feature of PF. Here, we report a small-molecule probe, PNO1, that can fluorogenically sense this microenvironmental feature for PF diagnosis. We demonstrate that PNO1 fluorescence is 6-fold higher in PF-diseased mice Lungs than in normal-control groups. In addition to this in vivo result, PNO1 can also be applied in vitro to detect PF-diseased cells and ex vivo to detect PF-diseased tissues from clinical patients. These results highlight PNO1 as a complement to the traditional immunostaining-based methods for PF detection to facilitate quick screening for anti-PF drug candidates.

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