Photoacoustic imaging of a cyanine dye targeting bacterial infection.

The development of a non-invasive infection-specific diagnostic probe holds the potential to vastly improve early-stage detection of infection, enabling precise therapeutic intervention and potentially reducing the incidence of antibiotic resistance. Towards this goal, a commercially available bacteria-targeting Zinc(II)-dipicolylamine (ZnDPA)-derived fluorophore, PSVue794, was assessed as a photoacoustic (PA) imaging probe (PIP). A radiolabeled version of the dye, [Tc]Tc-PSVue794, was developed to facilitate quantitative biodistribution studies beyond optical imaging methods, which showed a target-to-non-target ratio of 10.