Magneto-Liposomes as MRI Contrast Agents: A Systematic Study of Different Liposomal Formulations

Nanomaterials

Igor Serša¹  Janja Vidmar²  Nina Kostevšek³  Mauro Comes Franchini⁴  Ilaria Monaco⁴  MatejaErdani Kreft⁵  WafaT. Al-Jamal⁶  CalvinC. L. Cheung⁶ 

[1] Condensed Matter Physics Department, Jožef Stefan Institute, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia;Department for Environmental Sciences, Jožef Stefan Institute, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia;Department for Nanostructured Materials, Jožef Stefan Institute, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia;Department of Industrial Chemistry “Toso Montanari”, University of Bologna, 40136 Bologna, Italy;Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Cell Biology, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia;School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT9 7BL, UK;

关键词: liposomes;    magnetic resonance imaging;    iron oxide;    contrast agent;   

DOI  :  10.3390/nano10050889

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The majority of the clinically approved iron oxide nanoparticles (IO NPs) used as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been withdrawn from the market either due to safety concerns or lack of profits. To address this challenge, liposomes have been used to prepare IO-based T₂ contrast agents. We studied the influence of different phospholipids on the relaxivity (r₂) values of magneto-liposomes (MLs) containing magnetic NPs in the bilayer, where a strong correlation between the bilayer fluidity and r₂ is clearly shown. Embedding 5-nm IO NPs in the lipid bilayer leads to a significant improvement in their relaxivity, where r₂ values range from 153 ± 5 s⁻¹ mM⁻¹ for DPPC/cholesterol/DSPE-PEG (96/50/4) up to 673 ± 12 s⁻¹ mM⁻¹ for DOPC/DSPE-PEG (96/4), compared to “free” IO NPs with an r₂ value of 16 s⁻¹ mM⁻¹, measured at 9.4 T MRI scanner. In vitro MRI measurements, together with the ICP-MS analysis, revealed MLs as highly selective contrast agents that were preferentially taken up by cancerous T24 cells, which led to an improvement in the contrast and an easier distinction between the healthy and the cancerous cells. A careful selection of the lipid bilayer to prepare MLs could offer efficient MRI contrast agents, even at very low IO NP concentrations.

【 授权许可】

Unknown