Human erythrocytes as nanoparticle carriers for magnetic particle imaging

The potential of red blood cells (RBCs) loaded with iron oxide nanoparticles as a tracer material for magnetic particle imaging (MPI) has been investigated. MPI is an emerging, quantitative medical imaging modality which holds promise in terms of sensitivity in combination with spatial and temporal resolution. Steady-state and dynamic magnetization measurements, supported by semi-empirical modeling, were employed to analyze the MPI signal generation using RBCs as novel biomimetic constructs. Since the superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) bulk material that is used in this study contains nanoparticles with different sizes, it is suggested that during the RBC loading procedure, a preferential entrapment of nanoparticles with hydrodynamic diameter ≤60 nm occurs by size-selection through the erythrocyte membrane pores. This affects the MPI signal of an erythrocyte-based tracer, compared to bulk. The reduced signal is counterbalanced by a higher in vivo stability of the SPIO-loaded RBCs constructs for MPI applications.