Multimodal nanoagents for the detection of intravascular thrombi

Thrombosis underlies numerous life-threatening cardiovascular syndromes. Development of thrombosis-specific molecular imaging agents to detect and monitor thrombogenesis and fibrinolysis in vivo could improve the diagnosis, risk stratification, and treatment of thrombosis syndromes. To this end, we have synthesized efficient multimodal nanoagents targeted to two different constituents of thrombi, namely, fibrin and activated factor XIII. These agents are targeted via the conjugation of peptide-targeting ligands to the surface of fluorescently labeled magnetic nanoparticles. As demonstrated by in vitro and in vivo studies, both nanoagents possess high affinities for thrombi, and enable mutimodal fluorescence and magnetic resonance imaging.