Physiological parameters in tumor microenvironments, including hypoxia, low extracellular pH, enzymes, reducing conditions, and so on, are closely associated with the proliferation, angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis of cancer, and impact the therapeutic administrations. Therefore, monitoring the tumor microenvironment is significant for diagnosing tumors, predicting the invasion potential, evaluating therapeutic efficacy, planning the treatment, and cancer prognostics. Noninvasive molecular imaging technologies combined with novel “smart” nanoparticle-based activatable probes provide a feasible approach to visualize tumor-associated microenvironment factors. This review summarizes recent achievements in the designs of “smart” molecular imaging nanoprobes responding to the tumor microenvironment-related features, and highlights the state of the art in tumor heterogeneity imaging.
