Cerium oxide nanoparticles with antioxidant capabilities and gadolinium integration for MRI contrast enhancement

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 6999 - 12
• Main Authors: Eriksson, Peter, Tal, Alexey A., Skallberg, Andreas, Brommesson, Caroline, Hu, Zhangjun, Boyd, Robert D., Olovsson, Weine, Fairley, Neal, Abrikosov, Igor A., Zhang, Xuanjun, Uvdal, Kajsa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 03.05.2018; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 140/146; 639/301/357/354; 692/53/2421; Antioxidants; Cerium oxides; Enhancers; Gadolinium; Humanities and Social Sciences; Inflammation; Magnetic resonance imaging; multidisciplinary; Nanoparticles; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Oxidation; Redox properties; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Ultrastructure
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-25390-z

The chelating gadolinium-complex is routinely used as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) -contrast enhancer. However, several safety issues have recently been reported by FDA and PRAC. There is an urgent need for the next generation of safer MRI-contrast enhancers, with improved local contrast and targeting capabilities. Cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeNPs) are designed with fractions of up to 50% gadolinium to utilize the superior MRI-contrast properties of gadolinium. CeNPs are well-tolerated in vivo and have redox properties making them suitable for biomedical applications, for example scavenging purposes on the tissue- and cellular level and during tumor treatment to reduce in vivo inflammatory processes. Our near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) studies show that implementation of gadolinium changes the initial co-existence of oxidation states Ce 3+ and Ce 4+ of cerium, thereby affecting the scavenging properties of the nanoparticles. Based on a b initio electronic structure calculations, we describe the most prominent spectral features for the respective oxidation states. The as-prepared gadolinium-implemented CeNPs are 3–5 nm in size, have r 1 -relaxivities between 7–13 mM −1  s −1 and show clear antioxidative properties, all of which means they are promising theranostic agents for use in future biomedical applications.