Gd-nanoparticles functionalization with specific peptides for ß-amyloid plaques targeting.

Background: Amyloidoses are characterized by the extracellular deposition of insoluble fibrillar proteinaceous aggregates highly organized into cross-β structure and referred to as amyloid fibrils. Nowadays, the diagnosis of these diseases remains tedious and involves multiple examinations while an early and accurate protein typing is crucial for the patients' treatment. Routinely used neuroimaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) using Pittsburgh compound B, [(11)C]PIB, provide structural information and allow to assess the amyloid burden, respectively, but cannot discriminate between different amyloid deposits.

Improving proton therapy by metal-containing nanoparticles: nanoscale insights.

The use of nanoparticles to enhance the effect of radiation-based cancer treatments is a growing field of study and recently, even nanoparticle-induced improvement of proton therapy performance has been investigated. Aiming at a clinical implementation of this approach, it is essential to characterize the mechanisms underlying the synergistic effects of nanoparticles combined with proton irradiation. In this study, we investigated the effect of platinum- and gadolinium-based nanoparticles on the nanoscale damage induced by a proton beam of therapeutically relevant energy (150 MeV) using plasmid DNA molecular probe.

Combining ultrasmall gadolinium-based nanoparticles with photon irradiation overcomes radioresistance of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Gadolinium based nanoparticles (GBNs, diameter 2.9±0.2nm), have promising biodistribution properties for theranostic use in-vivo.

Gadolinium-based nanoparticles to improve the hadrontherapy performances.

Unlabelled: Nanomedicine is proposed as a novel strategy to improve the performance of radiotherapy. High-Z nanoparticles are known to enhance the effects of ionizing radiation. Recently, multimodal nanoparticles such as gadolinium-based nanoagents were proposed to amplify the effects of x-rays and g-rays and to improve MRI diagnosis.

The In Vivo Radiosensitizing Effect of Gold Nanoparticles Based MRI Contrast Agents.

Owing to the high atomic number (Z) of gold element, the gold nanoparticles appear as very promising radiosensitizing agents. This character can be exploited for improving the selectivity of radiotherapy. However, such an improvement is possible only if irradiation is performed when the gold content is high in the tumor and low in the surrounding healthy tissue.