AbstractNETosis, the peculiar type of neutrophil death, plays important roles in pro‐tumorigenic functions and inhibits cancer immunotherapy. Non‐invasive real‐time imaging is thus imperative for prognosis of cancer immunotherapy yet remains challenging. Herein, we report a Tandem‐locked NETosis Reporter 1 (TNR1) that activates fluorescence signals only in the presence of both neutrophil elastase (NE) and cathepsin G (CTSG) for the specific imaging of NETosis. In the aspect of molecular design, the sequence of biomarker‐specific tandem peptide blocks can largely affect the detection specificity towards NETosis. In live cell imaging, the tandem‐locked design allows TNR1 to differentiate NETosis from neutrophil activation, while single‐locked reporters fail to do so. The near‐infrared signals from activated TNR1 in tumor from living mice were consistent with the intratumoral NETosis levels from histological results. Moreover, the near‐infrared signals from activated TNR1 negatively correlated with tumor inhibition effect after immunotherapy, thereby providing prognosis for cancer immunotherapy. Thus, our study not only demonstrates the first sensitive optical reporter for noninvasive monitoring of NETosis levels and evaluation of cancer immunotherapeutic efficacy in tumor‐bearing living mice, but also proposes a generic approach for tandem‐locked probe design.
摘要嗜中性粒
细胞死亡(NETosis)是一种特殊的嗜中性粒
细胞死亡类型,在促肿瘤生成功能和抑制癌症免疫治疗方面发挥着重要作用。因此,非侵入性实时成像对于癌症免疫治疗的预后至关重要,但仍具有挑战性。在此,我们报告了一种串联锁定的 NETosis Reporter 1(TNR1),它只有在中性粒细胞
弹性蛋白酶(NE)和凝血酶 G(C
TSG)同时存在的情况下才能激活荧光信号,用于 NETosis 的特异性成像。在分子设计方面,
生物标记物特异性串联肽段的序列会在很大程度上影响对 NETosis 的检测特异性。在活细胞成像中,串联锁定设计允许 TNR1 将 NETosis 与中性粒细胞活化区分开来,而单个锁定的报告物则无法做到这一点。活体小鼠肿瘤中活化的 TNR1 发出的近红外信号与组织学结果显示的瘤内 NETosis
水平一致。此外,活化 TNR1 的近红外信号与免疫治疗后的肿瘤抑制效果呈负相关,从而为癌症免疫治疗提供了预后依据。因此,我们的研究不仅首次展示了用于无创监测肿瘤活体小鼠NETosis
水平和评估癌症免疫治疗效果的灵敏光学报告器,还提出了串联锁定探针设计的通用方法。