Highly water-dispersible surface-modified Gd(2)O(3) nanoparticles for potential dual-modal bioimaging

Water-dispersible and luminescent gadolinium oxide (GO) nanoparticles (NPs) were designed and synthesized for potential dual-modal biological imaging. They were obtained by capping gadolinium oxide nanoparticles with a fluorescent glycol-based conjugated carboxylate (HL). The obtained nanoparticles (GO-L) show long-term colloidal stability and intense blue fluorescence. In addition, L can sensitize the luminescence of europium(III) through the so-called antenna effect. Thus, to extend the spectral ranges of emission, europium was introduced into L-modified gadolinium oxide nanoparticles. The obtained EuIII-doped particles (Eu:GO-L) can provide visible red emission, which is more intensive than that without L capping. The average diameter of the monodisperse modified oxide cores is about 4 nm. The average hydrodynamic diameter of the L-modified nanoparticles was estimated to be about 13 nm. The nanoparticles show effective longitudinal water proton relaxivity. The relaxivity values obtained for GO-L and Eu:GO-L were r1=6.4 and 6.3 s−1 mM−1 with r2/r1 ratios close to unity at 1.4 T. Longitudinal proton relaxivities of these nanoparticles are higher than those of positive contrast agents based on gadolinium complexes such as Gd-DOTA, which are commonly used for clinical magnetic resonance imaging. Moreover, these particles are suitable for cellular imaging and show good biocompatibility.