VEGFR targeting leads to significantly enhanced tumor uptake of nanographene oxide in?vivo.

Although graphene oxide (GO) has recently been considered as a highly attractive nanomaterial for future cancer imaging and therapy， it is still a major challenge to improve its in?vivo tumor active targeting efficiency. Here in this full article， we demonstrated the successful and significantly enhanced in?vivo tumor vasculature targeting efficacy of well-functionalized GO nanoconjugates by using vascular endothelial growth factor 121 (VEGF121) as the targeting ligand. As-developed GO nanoconjugate exhibits excellent in?vivo stability， specific in?vitro and in?vivo vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) targeting， significantly enhanced tumor accumulation (>8 %ID/g) as well as high tumor-to-muscle contrast， showing great potential for future tumor targeted imaging and therapy.