Novel magnetic multicore nanoparticles designed for MPI and other biomedical applications: From synthesis to first in vivo studies

Harald Kratz; Matthias Taupitz; Angela Ariza de Schellenberger; Olaf Kosch; Dietmar Eberbeck; Susanne Wagner; Lutz Trahms; Bernd Hamm; Jörg Schnorr

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0190214

Novel magnetic multicore nanoparticles designed for MPI and other biomedical applications: From synthesis to first in vivo studies

PLoS One. 2018 Jan 4;13(1):e0190214. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0190214. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Harald Kratz¹, Matthias Taupitz¹, Angela Ariza de Schellenberger¹, Olaf Kosch², Dietmar Eberbeck², Susanne Wagner¹, Lutz Trahms², Bernd Hamm¹, Jörg Schnorr¹

Affiliations

¹ Charité -Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Institute of Radiology, Berlin, Germany.
² Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin, Germany.

Abstract

Synthesis of novel magnetic multicore particles (MCP) in the nano range, involves alkaline precipitation of iron(II) chloride in the presence of atmospheric oxygen. This step yields green rust, which is oxidized to obtain magnetic nanoparticles, which probably consist of a magnetite/maghemite mixed-phase. Final growth and annealing at 90°C in the presence of a large excess of carboxymethyl dextran gives MCP very promising magnetic properties for magnetic particle imaging (MPI), an emerging medical imaging modality, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The magnetic nanoparticles are biocompatible and thus potential candidates for future biomedical applications such as cardiovascular imaging, sentinel lymph node mapping in cancer patients, and stem cell tracking. The new MCP that we introduce here have three times higher magnetic particle spectroscopy performance at lower and middle harmonics and five times higher MPS signal strength at higher harmonics compared with Resovist®. In addition, the new MCP have also an improved in vivo MPI performance compared to Resovist®, and we here report the first in vivo MPI investigation of this new generation of magnetic nanoparticles.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Magnetics*
Microscopy, Electron, Transmission
Nanoparticles*

Grants and funding

The research was supported by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), Grant No. FKZ 13N11091 and 13N11092, by the German Research Foundation (DFG) research program (quantMPI, grant TR408/9-1 and KFO 213, grant TA 166/7-2) and by grants from the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE); and Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB), Grant No. 10146995. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.