Inflammation-targeted gold nanorods for intravascular photoacoustic imaging detection of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP2) in atherosclerotic plaques

Elevated expression of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP2) is one of the features of high-risk atherosclerotic plaques. In this paper, gold nanorods conjugated with MMP2 antibody (termed here AuNRs-Abs) are developed as a high-efficient photoacoustic imaging probe for mapping MMP2 in atherosclerotic plaques.138