Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has evolved into one of the most powerful techniques in diagnostic clinical medicine and biomedical research by enabling the acquisition of high resolution, three-dimensional images of the distribution of water in vivo (1). The strong expansion of medical MRI has prompted the development of a new class of pharmacological products, called contrast agents. These a...

Introduction: Recent advances in the development of targeted and smart molecular contrast agents have made it possible to detect cellular molecular events in vivo (1). Recently, convection-enhanced delivery (CED) has been proposed to deliver agents with very high specificity to the brain to detect glioblastoma multiforme, but the technique requires the detection of agent concentration differenc...

This communication demonstrates that yeast cell wall particles (YCWPs) are a promising class of nature-inspired biocompatible microcarriers for the delivery of amphipathic/lipophilic imaging reporters. When a paramagnetic MRI agent is loaded, the longitudinal relaxivity per particle at 0.5 T is the highest ever reported for Gd-based systems.

A new water-soluble gadolinium metallofullerenol was prepared through a solid-liquid reaction. It was characterized to have an enhanced effective magnetic moment, and improved T1-weighted relaxivity and magnetic resonance imaging performance in the liver. This material prepared by a facile method has wide application as a contrast agent and biological medicine.

5-(4-Aminophenyl)-10,15,20-tris(4-sulfonatophenyl) manganese(III) porphyrin conjugated with dextran was synthesized. Its potential of being used as a tumor-targeting magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent was evaluated in vitro and in vivo. The results demonstrated that the compound has a longitudinal relaxivity (R(1)) higher than Gd-DTPA, low cytotoxicity and binding specificity to tumor ce...

A tripodal ligand based on the 8-hydroxyquinolinate binding unit yields a soluble and highly stable bis-hydrated Gd(3+) complex in water (pGd = 19.2(3)) with relaxivity change in the pH range 4.5-7.4 and Nd(3+), Yb(3+) analogues with sizeable NIR emission upon excitation at 370 nm providing a new architecture for the development of bimodal agents.