Scientists Develop Glowing Tool To Reveal Cancer Cells

Newsweek

20 hours ago

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Diagnosing liver cancer may have just gotten more straightforward, thanks to a new probe that makes the affected tissue glow yellow.
The fluorescent labeling compound—dubbed "Sialyl Lewis Yellow"—was developed by an international team led from the Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea. It works by binding to structures on the surface of cells that are more common in cancer cells than their healthy counterparts.
"SLY represents the first fluorescent probe capable of selectively identifying sialylated glycans on the cell surface with such precision, enabling the identification of liver cancer at the cellular level," said study lead and chemist Professor Young-Tae Chang in a statement.
"This work opens new possibilities in glycan-based cancer diagnostics and may lay the groundwork for future applications in fluorescence-guided surgery and precision medicine."
Stock image of a human liver.
Stock image of a human liver.
magicmine/iStock / Getty Images Plus
Glycans are carbohydrate-based structures found on the surface of cells that are involved in a wide variety of cellular processes—from cell–cell interactions to immune responses.
Because of this, glycans can also end up playing a role in the development and progression of cancer.
In fact, the so-called Sialyl Lewis family of glycans, which are involved in cell-to-cell recognition and adhesion, are overexpressed in various cancers, including those of the liver.
This makes these glycans promising as markers to help with cancer diagnosis. The problem, however, has been that traditional methods for analyzing glycans aren't practical for use with real-time imaging.
A diagram of how the Sialyl Lewis Yellow probe works.
A diagram of how the Sialyl Lewis Yellow probe works.
POSTECH
To overcome this hurdle, Chang and colleagues experimented with a series of fluorescent probes, looking for one capable of reacting selectively to sialylated glycans on the surface of cells.
They found that Sialyl Lewis Yellow responded particularly well to two sialyl Lewis glycans, which are overexpressed in the cells of hepatocellular carcinoma, the most-common type of primary liver cancer, as well as those of colorectal cancer.
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Map shows states with higher cancer rates
Map shows states with higher cancer rates
The researchers said that the probe accumulates in the mitochondria of these cells after first binding to the target glycans and then being drawn into the cells.
Experiments on tissue samples taken from mice models of live cancer demonstrated that Sialyl Lewis Yellow is capable of effectively highlighting cancerous regions and distinguishing them from the surrounding tissue.
The researchers wrote: "Our newly developed probe holds immense potential in distinguishing cell types and advancing cancer diagnostics and fluorescence-guided surgery."
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Reference
Ko, K., Gao, M., Sarkar, S., Kwon, H.-Y., & Chang, Y.-T. (2025). Oxaborole-Functionalized Sialylated Glycan Probe for High-Fidelity Fluorescence Imaging of Cancer Tissue. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 147 (23), 19718—19726. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c03020