Peptide-Decorated Ultrasmall Superparamagnetic Nanoparticles as Active Targeting MRI Contrast Agents for Ovarian Tumors

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is widely applied in medical research and diagnosis, and a MRI contrast medium plays a crucial role in improving the sensitivity of detection. Ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxides (US-PIOs) exhibit the potential as a T 2 enhancement contrast medium for MRI due to their excellent magnetic response performance; however, to endow them with specific tumor targetability, long-term circulation performance has always been a hot topic in this field. In this study, a well-designed procedure of chemical coprecipitation, surface modification, and peptide grafting was applied to prepare the active tumortargeting USPIOs@F127-WSG, in which Pluronic F127 (F127) and the peptide WSGPGVWGASVK (peptide-WSG) were selected as the template agent and the ovarian tumor-targeting ligand, respectively. The results showed that single USPIOs@F127-WSG particles were Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles regulated by the confinement effect of F127 micelles with a uniform globular morphology and size (∼9 nm), and peptide-WSG was grafted for their tumor targetability. USPIOs@F127-WSG particles presented superparamagnetic behavior with high T 2 relaxivity (r 2 = 278.15 mM −1 s −1 ) and in vitro targetability for SKOV-3 cells due to the special binding between peptide-WSG and specific receptors of SKOV-3. The test results in vivo verified the targetability of USPIOs@F127-WSG by their specific aggregation in the tumor regions, leading to the T 2 -weighted MRI contrast enhancement. These outstanding properties indicate that USPIOs@F127-WSG have great potential to be applied as the active tumor-targeting contrast agent for MRI.

Establishment and Verification of Logistic Regression Model for Qualitative Diagnosis of Ovarian Cancer Based on MRI and Ultrasound Signs

“…Ultrasound diagnosis of ovarian tumors has the advantages of painless, simple operation and high repeatability and is widely used [ 5 , 6 ]. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has high resolution and spatial resolution for soft tissue, and it is widely used in the examination of abdominal and pelvic organ diseases, especially for the examination of ovarian tissue diseases [ 7 , 8 ]. At present, MRI tends to be the best imaging choice for the diagnosis of ovarian cancer [ 9 ].…”

The Efficacy of 18F-FDG PET/CT and Superparamagnetic Nanoferric Oxide MRI in the Diagnosis of Lung Cancer and the Value of 18F-FDG PET/CT in the Prediction of Lymph Node Metastasis

“…SPION combines superparamagnetic and nanosized properties. It is not only superparamagnetic but also compatible with human tissues with low toxicity [ 16 , 17 ]. SPION particle size for the diagnosis of lung cancer is generally 50~100 nm; due to its high affinity with the human reticuloendothelial system, it is easily engulfed by the reticuloendothelial cells on normal lung tissue.…”

Ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles: A next generation contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging

“…Gd, gadolinium; HX, hydroxamate; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; PEG, polyethylene glycol; SNR, signal-to-noise ratio; USPIO, ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide; ZDS, zwitterionic dopamine sulfonate Furthermore, in order to improve tumor targeting ability of the contrast particles, conjugating functional tumorspecific ligands, for example, hyaluronic acid, folic acid, antibodies, aptamers, and peptides, to the surface of USPIO nanoparticles has become one of the main strategies, to realize the so-called active targeting (Darguzyte et al, 2020;Duan et al, 2019;Z. Gao et al, 2017;Luo et al, 2015;Wu et al, 2018;Yin et al, 2019). For example, based on the specific interaction with integrin α v β 3 overexpressed on the angiogenic tumor vessels, the arginine-glycine-aspartic (RGD) peptide is often adopted to improve the accumulation of USPIO nanoparticles in the tumor site (S. Deng et al, 2015;Sun et al, 2018;Xue et al, 2015;.…”