Paramagnetic MRI Contrast Agents Based on the Use of Lanthanides and Transition Metals Complexes: From Small Molecules to Supramolecular Systems

A special issue of Magnetochemistry (ISSN 2312-7481).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2020) | Viewed by 6658

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Molecular Imaging Center, Department of Molecular Biotechnologies and Health Sciences, University of Torino, Torino, 10126, Italy
Interests: molecular imaging; magnetic resonance imaging; CEST agents; multiparametric tumor imaging; nanosized systems; photoacoustic imaging

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Molecular Imaging Center, Department of Molecular Biotechnologies and Health Sciences, University of Torino, Torino, 10126, Italy
Interests: molecular imaging; magnetic resonance imaging; T1 agents; FFC–NMRD; cancer imaging; Gd-deposition

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue deals with the use of metal complexes as paramagnetic MRI contrast probes.

Magnetic resonance imaging plays a key role in the field of in vivo diagnostic imaging because of its high spatial resolution, the possibility to visualize deep tissues, and the absence of invasiveness.

The use of metal-based contrast agents, mainly gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs), allows enhancing the clinical information attainable by MRI scans; thus, macrocyclic and linear GBCAs are widely employed in clinical MRI scans.

In the last three decades, great attention has been devoted to the optimization of the chemical and physical properties of these contrast agents, with the aim of improving their contrastographic performance and reducing toxicity. 

In particular, the issue of increasing their sensitivity has been largely investigated both by properly designing the chemical structure of small Lanthanide complexes and by introducing macromolecular systems and supramolecular adducts (e.g., albumin-binding CAs or paramagnetic liposomes).

The development of innovative multimodal, targeted, and/or responsive agents has demonstrated that the field of contrast agents for MRI still has much to offer.

The main aim of this Special Issue is to investigate the magnetic properties of metal-based MRI contrast agents, by highlighting the relationship between their chemical structure and the biological behavior.

Dr. Giuseppe Ferrauto
Dr. Enza Di Gregorio
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • CEST
  • FFC–NMRD, Gd complexes
  • Lanthanides
  • liposomes
  • magnetic resonance imaging
  • molecular imaging
  • nanosized systems
  • T1 agents

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 2209 KiB  
Article
Water Diffusion Modulates the CEST Effect on Tb(III)-Mesoporous Silica Probes
by Fabio Carniato, Giuseppe Ferrauto, Mónica Muñoz-Úbeda and Lorenzo Tei
Magnetochemistry 2020, 6(3), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/magnetochemistry6030038 - 1 Sep 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2457
Abstract
The anchoring of lanthanide(III) chelates on the surface of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) allowed their investigation as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) contrast agents. Since their efficiency is strongly related to the interaction occurring between Ln-chelates and “bulk” [...] Read more.
The anchoring of lanthanide(III) chelates on the surface of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) allowed their investigation as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) contrast agents. Since their efficiency is strongly related to the interaction occurring between Ln-chelates and “bulk” water, an estimation of the water diffusion inside MSNs channels is very relevant. Herein, a method based on the exploitation of the CEST properties of TbDO3A-MSNs was applied to evaluate the effect of water diffusion inside MSN channels. Two MSNs, namely MCM-41 and SBA-15, with different pores size distributions were functionalized with TbDO3A-like chelates and polyethylene glycol (PEG) molecules and characterized by HR-TEM microscopy, IR spectroscopy, N2 physisorption, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The different distribution of Tb-complexes in the two systems, mainly on the external surface in case of MCM-41 or inside the internal pores for SBA-15, resulted in variable CEST efficiency. Since water molecules diffuse slowly inside silica channels, the CEST effect of the LnDO3A-SBA-15 system was found to be one order of magnitude lower than in the case of TbDO3A-MCM-41. The latter system reaches an excellent sensitivity of ca. 55 ± 5 μM, which is useful for future theranostic or imaging applications. Full article
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20 pages, 3476 KiB  
Article
Design, Characterization and Molecular Modeling of New Fluorinated Paramagnetic Contrast Agents for Dual 1H/19F MRI
by Emilie Hequet, Céline Henoumont, Vera Djouana Kenfack, Vincent Lemaur, Roberto Lazzaroni, Sébastien Boutry, Luce Vander Elst, Robert N. Muller and Sophie Laurent
Magnetochemistry 2020, 6(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/magnetochemistry6010008 - 11 Feb 2020
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3685
Abstract
One major goal in medical imaging is the elaboration of more efficient contrast agents (CAs). Those agents need to be optimized for the detection of affected tissues such as cancers or tumors while decreasing the injected quantity of agents. The paramagnetic contrast agents [...] Read more.
One major goal in medical imaging is the elaboration of more efficient contrast agents (CAs). Those agents need to be optimized for the detection of affected tissues such as cancers or tumors while decreasing the injected quantity of agents. The paramagnetic contrast agents containing fluorine atoms can be used for both proton and fluorine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and they open the possibility of simultaneously mapping the anatomy using 1H MRI and accurately locating the agents using 19F MRI. One of the challenges in this domain is to synthesize molecules containing several chemically equivalent fluorine atoms with relatively short relaxation times to allow the recording of 19F MR images in good conditions. With that aim, we propose to prepare a CA containing a paramagnetic center and nine chemically equivalent fluorine atoms using a cycloaddition reaction between two building blocks. These fluorinated contrast agents are characterized by 19F NMR, showing differences in the fluorine relaxation times T1 and T2 depending on the lanthanide ion. To complement the experimental results, molecular dynamics simulations are performed to shed light on the 3D-structure of the molecules in order to estimate the distance between the lanthanide ion and the fluorine atoms. Full article
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