The imaging of sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs), the first defense against primary tumor metastasis, has been considered as an important strategy for noninvasive tracking tumor metastasis in clinics. In this study, we developed an imaging contrast system based on fluorescent dye-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNPs) that integrate near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent and photoacoustic (PA) imaging modalities for efficient SLN mapping. By balancing the ratio of dye and nanoparticles for simultaneous optimization of dual-modality imaging (NIR and PA), the dye encapsulated MSNP platform was set up to generate both a moderate NIR emission and PA signals simultaneously. Moreover, the underlying mechanisms of the relevance between optical and PA properties were discovered. Subsequently, dual-modality imaging was achieved to visualize tumor draining SLNs up to 2 weeks in a 4T1 tumor metastatic model. Obvious differences in uptake rate and contrast between metastatic and normal SLNs were observed both in vivo and ex vivo. Based on all these imaging data, it was demonstrated that the dye-loaded MSNPs allow detection of regional lymph nodes in vivo with time-domain NIR fluorescent and PA imaging methods efficiently.
Keywords: mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNPs); multimodality imaging; near-infrared fluorescence (NIR) imaging; photoacoustic (PA) imaging; sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs).