Designing Smart Iron Oxide Nanoparticles for MR Imaging of Tumors

• Published in: Chemical & biomedical imaging Vol. 1; no. 4; pp. 315 - 339
• Main Authors: Li, Zhenzhen, Bai, Ru, Yi, Jia, Zhou, Huige, Xian, Junfang, Chen, Chunying
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Nanjing University and American Chemical Society 24.07.2023; American Chemical Society
• Subjects: Review; Dual-mode imaging; Iron oxide nanoparticles; Magnetic resonance imaging; External stimuli; Contrast agent; Internal stimuli; Tumor imaging; Stimuli-responsive nanomaterials
• ISSN: 2832-3637; 2832-3637
• DOI: 10.1021/cbmi.3c00026

Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) possess unique magnetism and good biocompatibility, and they have been widely applied as contrast agents (CAs) for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Traditional CAs typically show a fixed enhanced signal, thus exhibiting the limitations of low sensitivity and a lack of specificity. Nowadays, the progress of stimulus-responsive IONPs allows alteration of the relaxation signal in response to internal stimuli of the tumor, or external stimuli, thus providing an opportunity to overcome those limitations. This review summarizes the current status of smart IONPs as tumor imaging MRI CAs that exhibit responsiveness to endogenous stimuli, such as pH, hypoxia, glutathione, and enzymes, or exogenous stimuli, such as magnets, light, and so on. We discuss the challenges and future opportunities for IONPs as MRI CAs and comprehensively illustrate the applications of these stimuli-responsive IONPs. This review will help provide guidance for designing IONPs as MRI CAs and further promote the reasonable design of magnetic nanoparticles and achieve early and accurate tumor detection.