Magnesium and gadolinium doping of superparamagnetic magnetite nanoparticles as T2 contrast nanoagents for magnetic resonance imaging

We have synthesized and doped superparamagnetic magnetite nanoparticles with magnesium and gadolinium as contrast-negative nanoagents for T 2 MRI and have been investigated on phantom agarose in vitro. The nanoparticles (NPs) have been synthesized by co-precipitation method and characterized by XRD, EDX, FTIR, SEM, TEM, VSM, and cytotoxicity test. The results have revealed the formation of the pure phase superparamagnetic-NPs. Compared with magnetite NPs ( r 2 = 0.540 mls −1 mg −1 ), Mg 0.1 Fe 2.9 O 4 showed the highest value of transverse relaxivity ( r 2 ) of 0.678 mls −1 mg −1 while r 2 values of Mg 0.025 Gd 0.125 Fe 2.85 O 4 and Gd 0.15 Fe 2.85 O 4 were 0.452 mls −1 mg −1 and 0.678 mls −1 mg −1 , respectively. Graphical abstract