Newer Methods of Nanoparticle Synthesis: Nitroimidazole properties with Nanometal oxides in Polymer Cages as Drug-Biomarker Monitors

Nitroimidazoles are radiosensitizers and hypoxia detecting chemosensitizers. Intially nitroimidazoles were single dose antibiotic drugs. Recently, nitroimidazole derivatives have emerged as multifunctional “drug-biomarker monitors” chemical compounds with importance in treatment of tumors, monitoring hypoxia and safer imaging contrast agents to monitor the therapeutic progress. Additionally, the number of nitroimidazole derivatives is growing and identified their importance as multifunctional nanoparticles. The nanoparticle synthesis scheme of nitroimidazole was proposed as nitroimidazole caged with metal oxide inside polymer coating and labeled with marker biomolecules. We report the step by step user-friendly new co-precipitation schemes of nitroimidazole carrier nanoparticles with their mechanisms of drug controlled release behavior, metal oxide sensitivity to imaging modalities and polymer coating chemistry developed at our lab. The multifunctional nitroimidazole nanoparticles were useful in detection and monitoring of hypoxia, cancer chemotherapy and soft tissue infections. In conclusion, nitroimidazoles are potential multifunctional molecules useful in chemotherapy, antiparasitic and monitoring hypoxia with greater possibility of simultaneous use of radiolabeled 2’nitroimidazoles as radiosensitizers, MRI-PET-US contrast imaging agents.