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Monitoring Dendritic Cell Migration using 19F / 1H Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Published on: March 20, 2013
Partially fluorinated nanoemulsions for 19F MRI-fluorescence dual imaging cell tracking
Kexin Chen1, Tingjuan Wu1, Mou Jiang2
1Group of Lead Compound, Department of Pharmacy, Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Tumor Microenvironment Responsive Drug Research, Hunan Province Cooperative Innovation Center for Molecular Target New Drug Study, University of South China, Hengyang 421001, China; Hubei Province Engineering and Technology Research Center for Fluorinated Pharmaceuticals, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071, China.
Abstract:
Fluorine-19 magnetic resonance imaging (19F MRI) has been a technology of choice for in vivo cell tracking, in which perfluorocarbons (PFCs) nanoemulsions are the most used 19F MRI agents. However, the peculiar physicochemical properties of PFCs may lead to poor cell uptake and misleading cell tracking results. Herein, we employed partially fluorinated aromatic agents to formulate paramagnetic nanoemulsions as novel 19F MRI-fluorescence (FL) dual imaging agents for cell tracking. With the intramolecular π-π interaction, low density and fluorine content, the partially fluorinated agents enable considerable solubilities of functional agents and short relaxation times, which facilitates convenient preparation of stable, biocompatible, and multifunctional nanoemulsions with high 19F MRI sensitivity. Replacing PFCs in 19F MRI nanoemulsions with readily available partially fluorinated aromatic agents may address many issues associated with PFCs and provide a novel strategy for high-performance 19F MRI agents of broad biomedical applications.
