HR-MAS NMR spectroscopy: an innovative tool for the characterization of iron oxide nanoparticles tracers for molecular imaging

The development of molecular imaging by MRI requires the use of contrast agents able to recognize specifically a peculiar target at the molecular level. Iron oxide nanoparticles grafted with small organic molecules represent an interesting platform for molecular imaging. The characterization of the surface of these nanoparticles is an important step in the development of these molecular agents, and HR-MAS NMR spectroscopy appears to be a very interesting tool. The use of 1D and 2D NMR spectra is indeed very helpful to investigate the covalent grafting of organic molecules at the nanoparticle surface. DOSY spectra could also be very helpful, but we will show here that it is not possible to obtain accurate DOSY spectra on iron oxide nanoparticles.