Water-soluble gadolinium fullerenes Gd@C82-TEGs as a potential magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent

Abstract

The water-soluble gadolinium fullerenes Gd@C 82 -TEGs nanoparticles as a novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent were fabricated by the metal fullerenes Gd@C 82 assembled with tetraethylene glycol (TEG). The loading Gd amount in Gd@C 82 -TEGs nanoparticles was 8.0 wt%. The average particle size of water-soluble Gd@C 82 -TEGs nanoparticles was 97 nm and the nanoparticles were uniformly spherical shape and had good dispersibility and no aggregation. The 97 nm spherical shape of Gd@C 82 -TEG nanoparticles ensured high relaxivity. The proton relaxivity ( r 1 ) and transverse relaxivity ( r 2 ) were high up to 37.1 mM −1 ·s −1 and 64.9 mM −1 ·s −1 , which greater than that of commercial Magnevist under the same conditions. The Gd@C 82 -TEGs nanoparticles exhibited pronounced T 1 -weighted MRI in vitro . The MRI signal-enhancing efficiency of Gd@C 82 -TEGs nanoparticles was superior to that of gadolinium diethylenetriamine pentaacetate Gd-DTPA (Magnevist). The Gd@C 82 -TEGs nanoparticles had no significant effect on cell metabolism and structure, and the survival rate of cells was more than 80%, which indicated that the as-prepared Gd@C 82 -TEGs nanoparticles were no cytotoxicity.