We screened the focused library of differently substituted
ECY dyes for biological distribution,
i.e.,
ECYa,
ECYS2,
ECYS3, at a dose of 1 mg/kg and
ECYPEG, at a dose of 3 mg/kg. ICG is routinely used for vasculature imaging in surgery and used as a reference. However, its quick hepatobiliary clearance is a practical limitation. In our experiment, ICG (1 mg/kg) was injected into BALB/c mice through tail vein. The mouse was irradiated by a laser at 808 nm and the fluorescence emission was collected through a longpass filter with a cutoff at 1200 nm. In as short as 2 min, the signal intensity from liver was already 1.7 fold higher than that of submental vein, and 3.5 fold higher than right saphenous vasculature. In 1 h, emission of ICG was not obvious anymore in vasculature. In the following few hours, the small intestine and the cecum were sequentially lit up highlighting its hepatobiliary clearance pathway and excretion
via feces. By monitoring the fluorescent intensity of ICG in the liver and the hindlimb vasculature, the half-lives of blood circulation and hepatobiliary clearance were calculated to be 6.4 ± 0.2 min and 144.3 ± 14.9 min, respectively. The mouse vasculature was also clearly observed upon tail-vein injection of
ECYa,
ECYS3 and
ECYPEG, except
ECYS2 because of its fast liver uptake. Compared to ICG,
ECYa (1 mg/kg) exhibited an improved blood retention and this was obvious in images taken within the first two hours (
Fig. 4A). The signal intensity from the spleen became strong and the bones including sternum and tibia were also lit up, presumably due to immunogenic interaction [
38]. In 12 h, emission was still visible in liver, intestines, and spine. Its blood retention half-life was 35.6 ± 7.7 min. The excretion was found to be primarily
via reticuloendothelial system [
39], with an excretion half-life of 789.8 ± 93.5 min, the slowest of the entire series tested. The biological distribution and pharmacokinetics of
ECYS2 (1 mg/kg) resemble those of ICG,
i.e., a fast uptake by liver with a short blood retention half-life of 2.4 ± 0.7 min, and fast excretion. One interest discovery was that the gallbladder was stained with high contrast with surrounding tissues during the period of 2–4 h post injection. Therefore, it also showed potential for intraoperative cholangiography during liver transplantation to avoid iatrogenic injury of bile duct [
40].
ECYS3 (1 mg/kg) yielded the brightest vasculature signal intensity within the first 10 min, compared to the other few dyes. Yet, it was not a good candidate for two reasons. First, its biological clearance is rapid, even more so than ICG. Second, it exhibited unexpected skin affinity, which explains the brighter signal intensity. The strong signal from the skin actually rendered the observation of deep-tissue vasculature difficult.
ECYS3 exhibited a blood circulation time of 18.6 ± 1.4 min and faster excretion upon taken up by liver with an excretion half-life of 60.5 ± 10.9 min.
ECYPEG (3 mg/kg) exhibited robust vasculature imaging capability. In the first 2 min,
ECYPEG lit up the submental, abdominal and hindlimb vasculature,
etc., and a relative lower degree of uptake by liver, the average signal in which was only 1.9 fold stronger than that of right saphenous vasculature, while for
ICG,
ECYa,
ECYS2 and
ECYS3, the ratio were 3.5, 3.3, 7.4 and 1.9. Over the next 3 h, though the signal intensity in the vasculature of cerebral and hindlimb gradually decreased, the signal-to-background ratio (SBR) of the highlighted blood vessels were remained above half of the maximum, while almost no fluorescence signal could be visualized after injection of ICG (Fig. S9 in the supporting information). A blood retention half-life of 147.5 ± 34.8 min and an excretion half-life of 244.1 ± 19.7 min were calculated.