FGF19-Based Mini Probe Targeting FGFR4 for Diagnosis and Surgical Navigation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a frequent malignancy
that has
a high death rate and a high rate of recurrence following surgery,
owing to insufficient surgical resection. Furthermore, HCC is prone
to peritoneal metastasis (HCC-PM), resulting in a significant number
of tiny cancer lesions, making surgical removal more challenging.
As a potential imaging target, FGFR4 is highly expressed in tumors,
especially in HCC, but is less expressed in the normal liver. In this
study, we used computational simulation approaches to develop peptide
I0 derived from FGF19, a particular ligand of FGFR4, and labeled it
with the NIRF dye, MPA, for HCC detection. In surgical navigation,
the TBR was 9.31 ± 1.36 and 8.57 ± 1.15 in HepG2 in situ
tumor and HCC-PM models, respectively, indicating considerable tumor
uptake. As a result, peptide I0 is an excellent clinical diagnostic
reagent for HCC, as well as a tool for surgically resecting HCC peritoneal
metastases.