Rapid and Selective Targeting of Heterogeneous Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors

Summary: Design of tissue-specific contrast agents to delineate tumors from background tissues is a major unmet clinical need for ultimate surgical interventions. Bioconjugation of fluorophore(s) to a ligand has been mainly used to target overexpressed receptors on tumors. However, the size of the final targeted ligand can be large, >20 kDa, and cannot readily cross the microvasculature to meet the specific tissue, resulting in low targetability with a high background. Here, we report a small and hydrophilic phenoxazine with high targetability and retention to pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. This bioengineered fluorophore permits sensitive detection of ultrasmall (