Nonlinear response of ultrasound contrast agent microbubbles: From fundamentals to applications**Projects supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 81127901, 81227004, 11374155, 11274170, 11274176, 11474001, 11474161, 11474166, and 11674173), the National High-Technology Research and Development Program, China (Grant No. 2012AA022702), and Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Province, China.

Abstract

Modelling and biomedical applications of ultrasound contrast agent (UCA) microbubbles have attracted a great deal of attention. In this review, we summarize a series of researches done in our group, including (i) the development of an all-in-one solution of characterizing coated bubble parameters based on the light scattering technique and flow cytometry; (ii) a novel bubble dynamic model that takes into consideration both nonlinear shell elasticity and viscosity to eliminate the dependences of bubble shell parameters on bubble size; (iii) the evaluation of UCA inertial cavitation threshold and its relationship with shell parameters; and (iv) the investigations of transfection efficiency and the reduction of cytotoxicity in gene delivery facilitated by UCAs excited by ultrasound exposures.