This paper proposed an engineered mesoporous silica-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticle, PVPMSFe, prepared by a sol-gel/surface-protected etching mechanism as an MRI T2 contrast agent. To this end, the structural characterization of the nanocomposite was performed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method, VSM, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), TEM, FESEM, and energy-dispersive X-ray scanning electron microscopy (EDS). The findings show that the synthesized nanocomposite has a mesoporous structure with an average particle size of 11.8 nm and excellent magnetization properties. The biocompatibility of PVPMSFe was investigated by MTT assay and hemolysis assay of red blood cells and the results indicate that PVPMSFe has favorable biocompatibility. Besides, the effect of PVPMSFe was assessed with MRI relaxivity measurement (T2 signal). Regarding the in vitro MRI relaxivity measurements outputs (r2=144.4), PVPMSFe can attenuate the T2 signal of MRI, perfectly which makes it an efficient T2 contrast agent.
Keywords: T2- contrast agent; MRI; PVP; Silica; etching process; magnetite.