Highly water-dispersible PEG surface modified ultra small superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles useful for target-specific biomedical applications

Ja Young Park; Patel Daksha; Gang Ho Lee; Seungtae Woo; Yongmin Chang

doi:10.1088/0957-4484/19/36/365603

Highly water-dispersible PEG surface modified ultra small superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles useful for target-specific biomedical applications

Nanotechnology. 2008 Sep 10;19(36):365603. doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/19/36/365603. Epub 2008 Jul 28.

Authors

Ja Young Park¹, Patel Daksha, Gang Ho Lee, Seungtae Woo, Yongmin Chang

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, College of Natural Sciences, Kyungpook National University, Taegu 702-701, Korea.

PMID: 21828874
DOI: 10.1088/0957-4484/19/36/365603

Abstract

For the application of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles in biomedical fields for target-specific purposes, they should be ultra small in diameter. We developed a simple one-step synthesis of surface modified ultra small superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (USPIONs) with an average particle diameter of 1.7 nm in a polar organic solvent. Polyethylene glycol diacid (PEG) surface modified USPIONs synthesized in triethylene glycol were nearly monodisperse in diameter and highly water-dispersible. The PEG surface modified USPIONs were tested for use as magnetic resonance (MR) contrast agents. They had a low r(2)/r(1) relaxivity ratio of 3.4 (r(1) = 4.46 and r(2) = 15.01 mM(-1) s(-1)) and showed clear dose-dependent T(1) and T(2) map images, indicating that they will be useful as both target-specific T(1) and T(2) MR contrast agents due to their ultra small size.