Synthesis, Characterization, and In Vitro Study of Dextrin-Coated Bismuth-Doped Manganese Ferrite Nanoparticles (Bio.3Mno.55Fe2O4) as an MRI Contrast Agent

Abstract

In magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), super paramagnetic nanoparticles can be used as contrast agents, which improve and enhance biological image information at tissue, cellular, or even molecular levels. Application of super paramagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles as a negative contrast agent in MRI has been widely extended. These particles are able to improve contrast of images via changing the relaxation times of the water protons. The main purpose of this study was to synthesize and characterize the dextrin-coated bismuth-doped manganese ferrite (Bio.3Mno.55Fe2O4) NPs, after this these NPs used as a MRI contrast agents. In vitro study was done to discuss the contrast enhancement. In this work, co-precipitation method used to synthesize the dextrin-coated bismuth-doped manganese ferrite (Bio.3Mno.55Fe2O4) nanoparticles. The morphological study, size, structural properties, and magnetic properties of the nanoparticles were investigated by different techniques. These dextrin-coated bismuth-doped manganese ferrite NPs have super paramagnetic behavior with a normal size of 4 ± 0.5 nm measured by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Measurements of the relaxivities (r2 and r2*) of the NPs were performed in vitro by using MAGICA gel phantom by a 1.5-T MRI system. The novel MRI contrast agent displays a small value cytotoxicity in human body and a large value of r2 and r2* relaxivity rate. These NPs might successfully raise the image contrast in both T2 and T2*-weighted images, but the NPs showed super paramagnetic behavior with contrast enhancement in T2*-weighted images. Thus, it can increase the contrast of tumor imaging and be a favorable MRI contrast agent for cancer theranostic applications.