摘要
By binding molecular probes that target tumor cells, gold nanoparticles （AuNPs） with superior characteristics have shown great potential in tumor molecular imaging studies. The non-invasive, high-resolution, and three-dimensional imaging of the targeted AuNPs within the tumor is desirable for both diagnosis and therapy. In this study, gold nanoflowers （AuNFs） are presented as a novel contrast agent for photoacoustic tomography （PAT）. By binding to folic acid, the molecular probe, the tail-vein injected AuNFs concentrated within the tumor site in mice; this was clearly visualized by three-dimensional （3D） PAT imaging. In addition, toxicity assay proved that AuNFs were harmless to living cells and animals. Our results demonstrate that AuNFs have great potential in tumor molecular imaging.
