In Vivo Tracking of Nanoparticles in Peritoneal Tumors

Mice bearing MKN45P-luc peritoneal tumors were intraperitoneally injected with ZAS-QDs (30 nmol Zn per g body-weight) or ZHS-QDs (45 nmol Zn per g body-weight) in PBS (500 μl) with or without 450 μg of iRGD. At 70 min postinjection of QDs, the mice were intraperitoneally injected with luciferin (15 mg ml⁻¹ in PBS, Biosynth International, Itasca, IL) at a dose of 0.28 mg per g body-weight. The mice were then anesthetized with isoflurane, and imaged at different time points for luminescence with a Xenogen IVIS imager (Perkin-Elmer) and for NIR with a Li-Cor Pearl Impulse imager under 800 nm channel. Some mice also had an extraperitoneal subcutaneous MKN45P-luc tumor in the presence of the peritoneal tumors. At 90 min postinjection of QDs, 1× Ag-TS (400 μl) was intraperitoneally injected. After 5 min, the mice were imaged with the Xenogen IVIS and Li-Cor Pearl Impulse imagers. The mice were then immediately sacrificed under deep anesthesia by cardiac perfusion with PBS, and the necropsied mice (in situ imaging) and resected tissues (ex vivo imaging) were imaged again. The abdominal cavity of the necropsied mice was not washed before in situ imaging. The tissues were processed for immunofluorescence as described elsewhere^{33 (link)}. Fluorescence intensity quantification was performed with Li-Cor Image Studio Lite 4.0 software.