Fig. 4.

LHRH peptide as a tumor-specific targeting moiety increases accumulation of different delivery systems in the tumor of mice bearing xenografts of human A549 lung carcinoma and limits their buildup in healthy organs. The nanocarriers were labeled with near-infrared dye Cy5.5, injected intravenously into the mice. The distribution of labeled nanocarriers was analyzed in live anesthetized animals 48 h after injection using IVIS Xenogen imaging system. The intensity of fluorescence is expressed by different colors with blue color reflecting the lowest intensity and red is indicative of the highest intensity. After measuring the distribution of fluorescence in the entire animal, tumor and healthy organs were excised and their fluorescence were registered and processed by the imaging system. Representative images are shown.