Approaches for neutrophil imaging: an important step in personalized medicine

ABSTRACT

Neutrophils are the most abundant circulating leukocytes and the first line of defense against invading pathogens. They are key components of the innate immune system. Neutrophils also cause tissue damage in various autoimmune and inflammatory diseases and play an important role in cancer progression. Due to the complex relationship between various diseases and neutrophils, these cells have become potentially important targets for therapeutic interventions. Monitoring neutrophils in the tumor microenvironment is critical for tumor treatment and prognostic analysis but remains challenging. Molecular imaging technology has made great progress as a valuable tool for noninvasively visualizing biological events and establishing effective cancer diagnoses and treatment methods. Molecular probes designed based on the characteristics of neutrophils, such as their flexible morphology, the abundance of surface receptors, and the absence of immunogenicity, have shown great potential. This has created an opportunity for novel ideas and research methods for the diagnosis and targeted therapy of inflammatory diseases and tumors, with the goal of integrated diagnosis and treatment. This review discusses the diverse tumor detection and diagnostic imaging strategies based on neutrophils. It is anticipated that neutrophil-based imaging will soon be gradually integrated into clinical applications.

Research Highlights

• Neutrophils play a role in promoting/inhibiting tumor growth in the tumor microenvironment.

• To be more conducive to discovering neutrophils in tumors and guiding treatment, medical imaging technology has developed stepwise.

• In the context of the intersection of imaging technology, great breakthroughs have been made in the individualized research of tumor diagnosis.

• This article contributes to the promotion of new multimodal molecular imaging technology and the application of rapid diagnosis individualization.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Molecular imaging
• neutrophils
• detection
• diagnostic
• tumor microenvironment

Acknowledgements

This research work supported by Natural Science Foundation (20180550488 and 2020-ZLLH-38 to Yiming Meng) of Liaoning Province, Young and middle-aged technological innovation talents in Shenyang of Yiming Meng (RC200491), Excellent Talent Fund of Liaoning Province Cancer Hospital and Medical-Engineering Joint Fund for Liaoning Province Cancer Hospital and Dalian University of Technology (LD202117) of Yiming Meng.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Statements of ethical approval

This research type is a review article and does not include human or animal experiments, so there is no ethical approval.

Additional information

Funding

This research work supported by Natural Science Foundation (20180550488 and 2020-ZLLH-38 to Yiming Meng) of Liaoning Province, Young and middle-aged technological innovation talents in Shenyang of Yiming Meng (RC200491), Excellent Talent Fund of Liaoning Province Cancer Hospital and Medical-Engineering Joint Fund for Cancer Hospital of China Medical University Liaoning Province Cancer Hospital and Dalian University of Technology (LD202117) of Yiming Meng.