Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) offers a non-radioactive alternative for the non-invasive detection of tumours. Low molecular weight MRI contrast agents currently in clinical use suffer either from a lack of specificity for tumour tissue or from low relaxivity and thus low contrast amplification. In this study, we present the newly designed two domain fusion protein Zarvin, which is able to bi...

For ultrasensitive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetic nanoparticles with extremely high r2 relaxivity are strongly desired. Magnetosome-like nanoparticles were prepared by coating polyethylene glycol-phospholipid (PEG-phospholipid) onto ferrimagnetic iron oxide nanocubes (FIONs). FIONs exhibited a very high relaxivity (r2) of 324 mM(-1) s(-1), allowing efficient labeling of various kind...

Treatments (illumination, chemical oxidation or reduction) which are potentially capable of producing paramagnetic centers in chloroplast thylakoid membranes do not produce enhancements of the proton magnetic relaxivities of these preparations. However, exposure of thylakoid membranes to varying concentrations of hydroxylamine induces a time-dependent increase in relaxivity for which the steady...

Two hybrid materials based on mesoporous silicas SBA-15 and MCM-41 functionalized with stable and electrically neutral Gd(iii) macrocyclic complexes were prepared, and their (1)H NMR relaxometric properties investigated as a function of temperature and magnetic field strength.

High-density lipoprotein (HDL) nanoparticles doped with gadolinium lipids can be used as magnetic resonance imaging diagnostic agents for atherosclerosis. In this study, HDL nanoparticles with different molar fractions of gadolinium lipids (0 < xGd-lipids < 0.33) were prepared, and the MR relaxivity values (r1 and r2) for all compositions were measured. Both r1 and r2 parameters reached a maxim...

Gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) is differentially expressed on the surfaces of various diseased cells, including prostate and lung cancer. However, monitoring temporal and spatial expression of GRPR in vivo by clinical MRI is severely hampered by the lack of contrast agents with high relaxivity, targeting capability and tumor penetration. Here, we report the development of a GRPR-targ...

Introduction The extracellular pH (pHe) of cancers is acidic and inhibiting this acidity will inhibit metastases. Methods to image pHe in tumors based on relaxivity of a pH-dependent contrast reagent (CR), Gd-DOTA-4AmP were developed. We investigated the single injection of a mixture of DyDOTP with GdDOTA-4AmP. The ΔT1, and ΔT2* induced by the Gd-CR exhibited similar pH-dependence, while the pH...

A series of gadolinium complexes were synthesised in order to test the design of dual-modal probes that display a change in fluorescence or relaxivity response upon binding of zinc. A dansyl-DO3ATA gadolinium complex [GdL1] displayed an increase and a slight blue-shift in fluorescence in the presence of zinc; however, a decrease in relaxation rate was observed. Consequently, the ability of the ...

INTRODUCTION: The desire to perform DCE-MRI studies at ever increasing magnetic fields comes from the promise of increased spatial and temporal resolution. However, to effectively use DCE-MRI at high fields, the increasing influence of T2* on the typically T1-weighted acquisition must be understood to avoid misinterpretation of results. While R1 relaxivity has been shown to slightly decrease [6...