Synthetic Antiferromagnetic Gold Nanoparticles as Bimodal Contrast Agents in MRI and CT-An Experimental In Vitro and In Vivo Study.

Antoine D’Hollander,Tom Struys,Uwe Himmelreich,Liesbet Lagae,Tim Stakenborg,Tom Dresselaers,Jesse Trekker,Jeroen Lammertyn,Ruben Van Roosbroeck,Ivo Lambrichts,Greetje Vande Velde

doi:10.3390/pharmaceutics13091494

Antoine D’Hollander, Tom Struys + Show 9 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13091494

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Journal: Pharmaceutics	Publication Date: Sep 17, 2021
Citations: 4	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: KU Leuven, IMEC, Hasselt University

Abstract

The use of multimodal contrast agents can potentially overcome the intrinsic limitations of individual imaging methods. We have validated synthetic antiferromagnetic nanoparticles (SAF-NPs) as bimodal contrast agents for in vitro cell labeling and in vivo cell tracking using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT). SAF-NP-labeled cells showed high contrast in MRI phantom studies (r2* = 712 s−1 mM−1), while pelleted cells showed clear contrast enhancement in CT. After intravenous SAF-NP injection, nanoparticles accumulated in the liver and spleen, as visualized in vivo by significant MRI contrast enhancement. Intravenous injection of SAF-NP-labeled cells resulted in cell accumulation in the lungs, which was clearly detectable by using CT but not by using MRI. SAF-NPs proved to be very efficient cell labeling agents for complementary MRI- and CT-based cell tracking. Bimodal monitoring of SAF-NP labeled cells is in particular of interest for applications where the applied imaging methods are not able to visualize the particles and/or cells in all organs.

Highlights

Introduction iationsNanoparticles have proven their value as agents in life science applications such as cancer theranostics or therapeutic cell imaging [1,2,3,4]
We propose top–down synthesized, gold synthetic antiferromagnetic nanoparticles (SAF-NPs) as bimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)/computed tomography (CT) contrast agents that do not suffer from these limitations
We have illustrated the high potential of bimodal imaging using SAF-NPs for in vitro and in vivo MR and CT imaging

Summary

Introduction

Nanoparticles have proven their value as agents in life science applications such as cancer theranostics or therapeutic cell imaging [1,2,3,4]. E.g., nanoparticles, or indirect labeling using genetically modified cells, several imaging techniques have been introduced to follow therapeutic cells [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. The most prominent of these imaging techniques are magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), X-ray based computed tomography (CT) and optical imaging. All of these have their specific advantages and disadvantages.

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