Abstract
Tumor initiating cells (TICs) have been implicated in clinical relapse and metastasis of a variety of epithelial cancers, including lung cancer. While efforts toward the development of specific probes for TIC detection and targeting are ongoing, a universal TIC probe has yet to be developed. We report the first TIC-specific fluorescent chemical probe, TiY, with identification of the molecular target as vimentin, a marker for epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). TiY selectively stains TICs over differentiated tumor cells or normal cells, and facilitates the visualization and enrichment of functionally active TICs from patient tumors. At high concentration, TiY also shows anti-TIC activity with low toxicity to non-TICs. With the unexplored target vimentin, TiY shows potential as a first universal probe for TIC detection in different cancers.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2851-2854 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Angewandte Chemie - International Edition |
Volume | 57 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2018 Mar 5 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This study was supported by an intramural funding from the A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore) Biomedical Research Council, Institute for Basic Science (IBS) IBS-R007-A1, and the National Medical Research Council grant NMRC/TCR/016-NNI/2016. We thank SBIC-Nikon Imaging Centre for confocal microscopy facilities.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Keywords
- antitumor agents
- biomarkers
- cancer
- fluorescent probes
- high-throughput screening
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Catalysis
- General Chemistry