Fluorescence imaging is one of the most promising approaches to achieve intraoperative assessment of the tumor/normal tissue margins during cancer surgery. This is critical to improve the patients’ prognosis, and therefore various molecular fluorescence imaging probes have been developed for the identification of cancer lesions during surgery. Among them, “activatable” fluorescence probes that react with cancer-specific biomarker enzymes to generate fluorescence signals have great potential for high-contrast cancer imaging due to their low background fluorescence and high signal amplification by enzymatic turnover. Over the past two decades, activatable fluorescence probes employing various fluorescence control mechanisms have been developed worldwide for this purpose. Furthermore, new biomarker enzymatic activities for specific types of cancers have been identified, enabling visualization of various types of cancers with high sensitivity and specificity. This Review focuses on recent advances in the design, function and characteristics of activatable fluorescence probes that target cancer-specific enzymatic activities for cancer imaging and also discusses future prospects in the field of activity-based diagnostics for cancer.

中文翻译：

---

基于活动的癌症荧光诊断

荧光成像是在癌症手术期间实现肿瘤/正常组织边缘的术中评估的最有前途的方法之一。这对于改善患者的预后至关重要，因此开发了各种分子荧光成像探针来识别手术期间的癌症病灶。其中，与癌症特异性生物标志物酶反应产生荧光信号的“可激活”荧光探针由于其低背景荧光和酶促周转引起的高信号放大，在高对比度癌症成像方面具有巨大潜力。在过去的二十年中，世界范围内为此目的开发了采用各种荧光控制机制的可激活荧光探针。此外，针对特定类型癌症的新生物标志物酶活性已被确定，从而能够以高灵敏度和特异性可视化各种类型的癌症。本综述重点介绍了可激活荧光探针的设计、功能和特性的最新进展，这些探针针对癌症成像中的癌症特异性酶活性，并讨论了基于活性的癌症诊断领域的未来前景。