Facile preparation of hyaluronic acid and transferrin co-modified Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles with inherent biocompatibility for dual-targeting magnetic resonance imaging of tumors in vivo

• Published in: Dalton transactions : an international journal of inorganic chemistry 2015, Vol.44 (46), p.19836-19843
• Main Authors: Pan, Jinbin, Sun, Shao-Kai, Wang, Yaqiong, Fu, Yan-Yan, Zhang, Xuejun, Zhang, Yi, Yu, Chunshui
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1477-9226; 1477-9234
• DOI: 10.1039/C5DT02486B

Clinical diagnosis of malignant tumors using nanoprobes needs severe improvements in the aspects of sensitivity and biocompatibility. Integrating a dual-targeting strategy with the selection of human-inherent elements and molecules as raw materials shows great potential in the development of a biosafe and sensitive nanoplatform. To carry out the proposed design, we constructed a biocompatible, dual-targeting MR imaging nanoprobe, based on Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles (NPs) co-modified with inherently innoxious hyaluronic acid (HA) and transferrin (Tf). HA was used as both a template and a targeting molecule to form Fe 3 O 4 @HA NPs through a one-step co-precipitation method, which were then further modified with Tf to obtain the dual-targeting Fe 3 O 4 @HA@Tf NPs at room temperature. The excellent biocompatibility of the nanoprobe was demonstrated via toxicity assays in vitro and in vivo . The desirable dual-targeting ability towards tumor cells was confirmed by a cellular uptake test (Hela cells, overexpressing both CD44 and transferrin receptors), and the developed nanoprobe was successfully applied in tumor-targeted MR imaging in vivo . In summation, we developed a dual-targeting Fe 3 O 4 nanoprobe, following a facile procedure at room temperature. The nanoprobe showed a high targeting ability towards tumor cells and excellent biocompatibility, which showed its great potential to be applied in the clinical diagnosis of tumors.