Typologie d'actualités: Group Luminescent lanthanide compounds, optical spectroscopy and bioimaging

CBM doctoral student wins prize for best oral presentation at symposium

Petra Cutuk, doctorante au CBM, a reçu le prix de la meilleure présentation orale lors du colloque 2025 du Réseau Molécules Marines, Métabolisme et Cancer.

Petra Cutuk, doctorante de deuxième année, qui effectue son travail de recherche conjointement entre l'équipe "Composés luminescents de lanthanides, spectroscopie et bioimagerie optique" du CBM d'Orléans et l'équipe Inserm "U1069 - Niche, Nutrition, Cancer & métabolisme Oxydatif- N2Cox" de l'Université de Tours, a reçu le prix de la meilleure présentation orale pour sa présentation intitulée "Elucidating the Regulation of SKCa Channels by the cAMP/PKA Pathway in Cancer Cells: Innovations in Near-Infrared Optical Imaging Agents" lors du colloque annuel 2025 du Réseau Molécules Marines, Métabolisme & Cancer à Mansigné le 16 mai 2025.

The prize is awarded by the Fondation ARC pour la recherche sur le cancer to finance participation in a conference.

Petra Cutuk is on the right in the photo.

 

Multiplex imaging in the NIR-II window with lanthanide-based molecular agents: a dream or a reality?

In this work we have created a new family of lanthanide-based molecular imaging agents that can be used for multiplex imaging in the second near-infrared window (NIR-II, 1000-1700 nm). NIR-II light is particularly interesting for non-invasive, real-time imaging and diagnosis of living organisms, as it is unaffected by the native fluorescence of biological tissues and fluids, and can penetrate through them. In addition, multiplex imaging enables the simultaneous, real-time visualization of several biological markers for even more precise diagnosis of diseases and a deeper understanding of biological processes. This new family of molecular imaging agents is based on an innovative design and combines the exceptional advantages of “metallacrowns” to emit NIR-II light with those of ruthenium complexes, which exhibit strong absorption in the visible range and effectively sensitize lanthanides. Using NIR-II imaging experiments, we have been able to demonstrate that four bands from three different lanthanides can be distinguished unambiguously due to their minimal overlap, while exhibiting sufficient intensity to be detected through a tissue-mimicking phantom.

Enabling Visible Light Sensitization of YbIII, NdIII and ErIII in Dimeric LnIII/GaIII Metallacrowns through Functionalization with RuII Complexes for NIR-II Multiplex Imaging
Codruţa C. Bădescu-Singureanu, Dr. Anton S. Nizovtsev, Prof. Dr. Vincent L. Pecoraro, Prof. Dr. Stéphane Petoud, Dr. Svetlana V. Eliseeva
Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2024
https://doi-org.inc.bib.cnrs.fr/10.1002/anie.202416101

This article was reported by CNRS Chimie on its website.

Professor Vincent L. Pecoraro of the University of Michigan is invited at the CBM from May to July 2024 through a LE STUDIUM Research Professorship

Professor Pecoraro is internationally recognized for his major contributions in bioinorganic chemistry, notably on the role of manganese complexes and clusters in photosynthetic water oxidation. He is also a pioneer in the design of metalloenzyme mimetics and in the study of metallacrown complexes with unique magnetic and/or luminescence properties for developments in medical imaging, a field in which several patents have recently been filed with the team “Luminescent lanthanide compounds, optical spectroscopy and bioimaging” from the CBM.

In 2021, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Aix-Marseille and a LE STUDIUM Research Professorship (Loire Valley Institute). In addition, Professor Pecoraro is the 2021 recipient of the Franco-American award from the American Chemical Society and the “Société Chimique de France”.

He is one of the co-founder of the startup VIEWaves founded in Orléans in March 2022 that aims at the commercialization of the optical imaging agents emitting in the near-Infrared domain created on the basis of the collaborative work conducted with the team at CBM.

Dual agents for non-invasive imaging of living organisms

Researchers in the "Lanthanide Luminescent Compounds, Spectroscopy and Optical Bioimaging" team have designed a molecular probe that can image living organisms using both near-infrared (NIR) luminescence and photoacoustic (PA) signal detection. These two complementary imaging techniques make it possible to monitor biological events precisely, in real time and non-invasively.

Find out more

A Dual-Mode Near-Infrared Optical and Photoacoustic Imaging Agent Based on a Low Energy Absorbing Ytterbium Complex
Anton Kovalenko, Svetlana V. Eliseeva, Guillaume Collet, Saïda El Abdellaoui, Sharuja Natkunarajah, Stéphanie Lerondel, Laure Guénée, Céline Besnard & Stéphane Petoud
JACS 2024
https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c03406

Watching enzymes work in vivo with rare-earth-based molecular probes

Scientists at the CNRS Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire (CBM) in Orléans and the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay) have designed luminescent probes. They are based on complexes of lanthanides (Ln), a series of rare-earth metals whose trivalent Ln3+ ions are luminescent. The special feature of these probes is that the activity of certain enzymes can modify their luminescence in the near infrared, as well as the signal observed on MRI. These probes make it possible to track the catalytic activity of an enzyme with a single molecule using several complementary imaging techniques: MRI and near-infrared optics. Essential for unambiguous detection of a biological phenomenon, this dual imaging with a single molecule avoids biases due to the use of chemically different imaging agents for each imaging technique.

This study, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, paves the way for new non-invasive diagnostic strategies.

This work has been reported on the Cnrs Chimie website

Article reference
Lanthanide-Based Probes for Imaging Detection of Enzyme Activities by NIR Luminescence, T1- and ParaCEST MRI
Rémy Jouclas, Sophie Laine, Svetlana V. Eliseeva, Jérémie Mandel, Frédéric Szeremeta, Pascal Retailleau, Jiefang He, Jean-Francois Gallard, Agnès Pallier, Célia S. Bonnet, Stéphane Petoud, Philippe Durand & Éva Tóth
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202317728