Shedding light onto live molecular targets

By Ralph Weissleder, Vasilis Ntziachristos. Nature Medicine, 2003

1,890 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Optical sensing of specific molecular targets and pathways deep inside living mice has become possible as a result of a number of advances. These include design of biocompatible near-infrared fluorochromes, development of targeted and activatable 'smart' imaging probes, engineered photoproteins and advances in photon migration theory and reconstruction. Together, these advances will provide new tools making it possible to understand more fully the functioning of protein networks, diagnose disease earlier and speed along drug discovery.

Subfields: Biophysics, Molecular Biology, Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4677f15cba47c9126744f69e6a6703e946bb8795

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Citations in the corpus

Chemistry in living systems (2005, background): “Because they are genetically encoded and require no auxiliary cofactors, GFP tags can be used to analyze protein expression and localization in living cells and whole organism”
Recent advances in diffuse optical imaging (2005, background): “Molecular imaging is a rapidly growing research field in which contrast agents are bound to specific proteins or genes and used to image the distribution of targeted molecules in small animal models (Weisslader and Ntziachristos 2003, Cherry 2004).”
Going deeper than microscopy: the optical imaging frontier in biology (2010, background): “This leads to loss of sufficient signal at 3–6 cm depth in muscle or brain or at 10–12 cm depth in less absorbing organs such as the human breast and presents an upper limit of penetration depth for photonic imaging application”
Looking and listening to light: the evolution of whole-body photonic imaging (2005, methodology): “Whole-body fluorescence and bioluminescence imaging have transformed the ways gene expression and protein functions are visualized in vivo”
The growing and glowing toolbox of fluorescent and photoactive proteins (2016, background): “, from hemoglobin, water, and lipids) and light scattering, are at a minimum [27,28].”
Peptide-based Probes for Targeted Molecular Imaging (2010, background): “However, the use of these fluorophores in vivo has a significant drawback because visible light penetration can be hampered by tissue autofluorescence and can be interfered with by components in the body such as water, hemoglobin, and deoxyhemoglobin (88).”
Carbon nanotubes as photoacoustic molecular imaging agents in living mice (2008, neutral): “1b; shorter wavelengths are less desirable as the depth of penetration through the tissues is reduced 21 ).”
Glycans in cancer and inflammation — potential for therapeutics and diagnostics (2005, background): “To date, the field of molecular imaging has focused on protein-based markers that are targeted with antibody conjugates, receptor ligands or enzyme substrates/inhibitor”