IR 780 is a heptamethine cyanine fluorescent probe forin vivoimaging of tumor cells.¹It displays excitation/emission maxima of 780/799 nm, respectively.²IR 780 is transported into tumor cells, an effect that can be blocked by the organic anion transporting polypeptide (OATP) inhibitor sulfobromophthalein , and targeted to the mitochondria.¹It has an additive effect on the increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) production induced by sonodynamic therapy (SDT) in 4T1 breast cancer cells when used at a concentration of 16 &#181M.³IR 780 (0.2 mg/kg, i.v.) preferentially accumulates in tumor tissue in MCF-7, HeLa, and MG-63 mouse xenograft models and in a syngeneic mouse model of chemically induced lung tumors, and its fluorescence is detectable for up to 20 days. It also has an additive effect on the SDT-induced reduction in tumor growth in an 4T1 murine mammary carcinoma model. IR 780 has been incorporated into heparin-folic acid-IR 780 nanoparticles for use in photothermal therapy.⁴

1.Zhang, C., Liu, T., Su, Y., et al.A near-infrared fluorescent heptamethine indocyanine dye with preferential tumor accumulation for in vivo imagingBiomaterials31(25)6612-6617(2010)
2.Baeten, J., Niedre, M., Dunham, J., et al.Development of fluorescent materials for diffuse fluorescence tomography standards and phantomsOpt. Express15(14)8681-8694(2007)
3.Li, Y., Zhou, Q., Deng, Z., et al.IR-780 dye as a sonosensitizer for sonodynamic therapy of breast tumorSci. Rep.625968(2016)
4.Yue, C.H., Liu, P., Zheng, M., et al.IR-780 dye loaded tumor targeting theranostic nanoparticles for NIR imaging and photothermal therapyBiomaterials34(28)6853-6861(2013)