Clinical big-data-based design of GLUT2-targeted carbon nanodots for accurate diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma

experiments were conducted on GLUT2-modified HepG2 cells to confirm the specificity of the GLN-CNDs. Since the GLUT2 expression is higher in hepatocytes than in HCC cells, the GLUT2-targeted contrast agent is highly attached to normal cells. However, it is possible to produce images in the same form as the images obtained with a cancer cell-targeted contrast agent by inverting color scaling. Our results indicate that GLUT2 is a promising target for HCC and that GLN-CNDs may potentially be used as targeted imaging probes for diagnosing HCC.