Electrostatic self-assembled nanoparticles based on spherical polyelectrolyte brushes for magnetic resonance imaging.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the most important medical imaging techniques for clinical diagnosis. Contrast agents (CAs) are commonly necessarily used to enhance the imaging quality of MRI and differentiate diseased tissues from normal ones. Herein, we introduced a macromolecular carrier, spherical polyelectrolyte brushes (SPBs), which consists of a solid polystyrene (PS) core and polyacrylic acid (PAA) chains as a brush layer to host Gd(iii) complexes.

Spherical Polyelectrolyte Brushes as a Novel Platform for Paramagnetic Relaxation Enhancement and Passive Tumor Targeting.

A novel platform for the development of highly efficient magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents has been demonstrated. New contrast agents are designed and produced through electrostatic self-assembly of cationic gadolinium(III) complexes onto anionic spherical polyelectrolyte brushes (SPB). The structurally well-defined SPB are composed of polystyrene core and polyacrylic acid brush layer, where numerous binding sites and confined microenvironments are available for the embedment of the gadolinium(III) contrast agents.