Strategic reconstruction of macrophage-derived extracellular vesicles as a magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent
Sagar Rayamajhi, Ramesh Marasini, Tuyen Duong Thanh Nguyen, Brandon L. Plattner, David S. Biller, Santosh Aryal
Abstract
of Magnevist® at an equivalent Gd concentration, when measured by clinical 3T MRI. This will allow us to reduce the clinically used Gd concentration about three-fold while maintaining contrast in the clinical window thereby supporting our hypothesis. Furthermore, Gd-HEVs showed a preferential cellular interaction and accumulation towards cancer cells compared to non-cancer cells, both in vitro and in vivo. More importantly, Gd-HEVs showed excellent contrast enhancement in the blood vasculature with a higher retention time compared to its counterpart, Magnevist®. Our study successfully showed that the incorporation of Gd in the EV framework can help to enhance the contrast ability, and therefore it can be a platform technology for the development of safer MRI contrast agents.