Synergistic Enhancement of Fluorescence and Magnetic Resonance Signals Assisted by Albumin Aggregate for Dual-Modal Imaging

Lirong Wang; Qing Wan; Rongyuan Zhang; Bo Situ; Kaiyuan Ni; Jinhao Gao; Xing Feng; Pengfei Zhang; Zhiming Wang; Anjun Qin; Ben Zhong Tang

doi:10.1021/acsnano.1c01251

Synergistic Enhancement of Fluorescence and Magnetic Resonance Signals Assisted by Albumin Aggregate for Dual-Modal Imaging

ACS Nano. 2021 Jun 22;15(6):9924-9934. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.1c01251. Epub 2021 Jun 7.

Authors

Lirong Wang¹, Qing Wan¹, Rongyuan Zhang², Bo Situ³, Kaiyuan Ni⁴, Jinhao Gao⁵, Xing Feng⁶, Pengfei Zhang⁷, Zhiming Wang¹, Anjun Qin¹, Ben Zhong Tang^{1

8}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Luminescence from Molecular Aggregates, AIE Institute, Center for Aggregation-Induced Emission, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China.
² Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, 188 Shizi Road, Suzhou 215006, China.
³ Department of Laboratory Medicine, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China.
⁴ Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, United States.
⁵ Department of Chemical Biology, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
⁶ School of Material and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
⁷ Guangdong Key Laboratory of Nanomedicine, Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Nanoformulations, CAS Key Laboratory of Health Informatics, Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁸ Shenzhen Institute of Molecular Aggregate Science and Engineering, School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 2001 Longxiang Boulevard, Longgang District, Shenzhen City, Guangdong 518172, China.

PMID: 34096697
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.1c01251

Abstract

Dual-modal fluorescence and magnetic resonance imaging (FLI/MRI) is important for the early diagnosis of malignant tumors. However, facile and opportune strategies to synergistically enhance fluorescence intensity and magnetic resonance (MR) contrast have rarely been reported. Herein, we present a facile strategy using albumin aggregates (AAs) to synergistically enhance the fluorescence intensity by aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and MR contrast with prolonged rotational correlation time (τ_R) of Gd(III) chelates and the diffusion correlation time (τ_D) of surrounding water molecules. The amphiphilic dual-modal FLI/MRI probe of NGd was facilely loaded into albumin pockets and then formed AAs to generate a supramolecular structure of NGd-albumin aggregates (NGd-AAs), which show excellent biocompatibility and biosafety, and exhibit superior fluorescence quantum yield and r₁ over NGd with 6- and 8-fold enhancement, respectively. Moreover, compared with the clinical MRI contrast agent Gd-DOTA, r₁ of NGd-AAs showed a 17-fold enhancement. Therefore, NGd-AAs successfully elicited high-performance dual-modal FLI/MRI in vitro and in vivo and high contrast MR signals were observed in the liver and tumor after intravenous injection of NGd-AAs at a dosage of 6 μmol Gd(III)/kg body weight. This generic and feasible strategy successfully realized a synergistic effect for dual-modal FLI/MRI.

Keywords: aggregation-induced emission; albumin aggregate; fluorescence; magnetic resonance signal; synergistic enhancement.

Publication types

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

MeSH terms

Albumins
Contrast Media*
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Neoplasms*

Substances

Albumins
Contrast Media