Abstract
Endogenous biomaterials in organisms, with native biocompatibility and biodegradability, appear more advantageous in the development of nanoscale diagnostic and therapeutic systems for future clinical translation. Herein, a novel tumor-targeting Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) contrast agent was developed based on Mn2+-chelating ultrasmall water-soluble melanin nanoparticles (MNP-PEG-Mn). The nanoparticles, with a size of about 5.6 nm, presented high chelation stability and showed negligible cytotoxicity as estimated by MTT assay. Moreover, the r1 longitudinal relaxivity (20.56 mM-1 s-1) of MNP-PEG-Mn was much higher than that of Gadodiamide (6.00 mM-1 s-1), which is a clinically approved MRI contrast agent. In vivo MRI experiments revealed excellent tumor-targeting specificity after tumor-bearing mice were intravenously injected with MNP-PEG-Mn. Additionally, MNP-PEG-Mn could be excreted via renal and hepatobiliary pathways with negligible toxicity to body tissues. These preliminary results indicated the clinically translatable potential of MNP-PEG-Mn as a T1 MRI contrast agent for tumor-targeted imaging.
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