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Flash nanoprecipitation with Gd(III)‐based metallosurfactants to fabricate polylactic acid nanoparticles as highly efficient contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging
Author(s) -
Xu Kehan,
Wang Mingwei,
Tang Weijun,
Ding Yun,
Hu Aiguo
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
chemistry – an asian journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.18
H-Index - 106
eISSN - 1861-471X
pISSN - 1861-4728
DOI - 10.1002/asia.202000624
Subject(s) - polylactic acid , nanoparticle , materials science , ethylene glycol , amphiphile , mri contrast agent , magnetic resonance imaging , magnetic nanoparticles , copolymer , particle size , gadolinium , polymer , nanotechnology , chemical engineering , composite material , medicine , metallurgy , engineering , radiology
Polylactic acid (PLA) nanoparticles coated with Gd(III)‐based metallosurfactants (MS) are prepared using a simple and rapid one‐step method, flash nanoprecipitation (FNP), for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) applications. By co‐assembling the Gd(III)‐based MS and an amphiphilic polymer, methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)‐b‐poly(ϵ‐caprolactone) (mPEG‐ b ‐PCL), PLA cores were rapidly encapsulated to form biocompatible T 1 contrast agents with tunable particle size and narrow size distribution. The hydrophobic property of Gd(III)‐based MS were finely tuned to achieve their high loading efficiency. The size of the nanoparticles was easily controlled by tuning the stream velocity, Reynolds number and the amount of the amphiphilic block copolymer during the FNP process. Under the optimized condition, the relaxivity of the nanoparticles was achieved up to 35.39 mM −1 s −1 (at 1.5 T), which is over 8 times of clinically used MRI contrast agents, demonstrating the potential application for MR imaging.