Water-soluble l-cysteine-coated FePt nanoparticles as dual MRI/CT imaging contrast agent for glioma

Abstract

Shuyan Liang,1 Qing Zhou,1 Min Wang,2,3 Yanhong Zhu,1 Qingzhi Wu,2,3 Xiangliang Yang1 1College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China; 2State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China; 3Biomedical Material and Engineering Center of Hubei Province, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China Abstract: Nanoparticles (NPs) are advantageous for the delivery of diagnosis agents to brain tumors. In this study, we attempted to develop an l-cysteine coated FePt (FePt-Cys) NP as MRI/CT imaging contrast agent for the diagnosis of malignant gliomas. FePt-Cys NPs were synthesized through a co-reduction route, which was characterized by transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and dynamic light scattering. The MRI and CT imaging ability of FePt-Cys NPs was evaluated using different gliomas cells (C6, SGH44, U251) as the model. Furthermore, the biocompatibility of the as-synthesized FePt-Cys NPs was evaluated using three different cell lines (ECV304, L929, and HEK293) as the model. The results showed that FePt-Cys NPs displayed excellent biocompatibility and good MRI/CT imaging ability, thereby indicating promising potential as a dual MRI/CT contrast agent for the diagnosis of brain malignant gliomas. Keywords: CT, glioma, MRI