Visualizing inflammation with an M1 macrophage selective probe via GLUT1 as the gating target

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33526-z
• Publication Date: 2022-10-10T15:05:33Z
• Authors: Heewon Cho; Haw-Young Kwon; Amit Sharma; Sun Hyeok Lee; Xiao Liu; Naoki Miyamoto; Jong-Jin Kim; Sin-Hyeog Im; Nam-Young Kang; Young-Tae Chang
• Keywords: Inflammation; 0301 basic medicine; Glucose Transporter Type 1; POLARIZATION; Science; Macrophages; Q; Macrophage Activation; Article; 3. Good health; 03 medical and health sciences; Animals; Plastics; Fluorescent Dyes

AbstractMacrophages play crucial roles in protecting our bodies from infection and cancers. As macrophages are multi-functional immune cells, they have diverse plastic subsets, such as M1 and M2, derived from naïve M0 cells. Subset-specific macrophage probes are essential for deciphering and monitoring the various activation of macrophages, but developing such probes has been challenging. Here we report a fluorescent probe, CDr17, which is selective for M1 macrophages over M2 or M0. The selective staining mechanism of CDr17 is explicated as Gating-Oriented Live-cell Distinction (GOLD) through overexpressed GLUT1 in M1 macrophages. Finally, we demonstrate the suitability of CDr17 to track M1 macrophages in vivo in a rheumatoid arthritis animal model.