The impact of metal-decorated polymeric nanodots on proton relaxivity

The present talk will discuss experimental data regarding successful fabrication of a novel Cu²⁺-complex of nitrogen-rich polymer nanodots, with a mean diameter of about 20 nm extracted from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) micrographs and 350 nm obtained from dynamic light scattering (DLS) data. In a first step, the N-rich polymer nanodots were fabricated from N-vynil imidazole (VIm) using a one-pot hydrothermal synthesis performed at 220 ^oC for 24 hour. Secondly, the as-fabricated VIm-based nanodots were used to fabricate the Cu²⁺-doped VIm-based nanodots (Cu²⁺@VIm) via efficient incorporation as a complex in aqueous medium. The relaxivity of the as-fabricated Cu²⁺@Vim nanodots was explored aiming at its application as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent. Enhancement of the relaxivity of the Cu²⁺@Vim nanodots (r1 = 1.05 mM⁻¹ s⁻¹) while compared to the relaxivity of the Cu²⁺ aqueous ion (r1 = 0.43 mM⁻¹ s⁻¹) will be presented and discussed. MRI tests performed while labeling MCF-7 cells with Cu²⁺@Vim nanodots show a remarkable contrast enhancement for T1-weighted imaging. Additional biomedical applications will be explored in the talk.