Rapid Size-Controlled Synthesis of Dextran-Coated, 64Cu-Doped Iron Oxide Nanoparticles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rapid microwave-based method for synthesizing dextran-coated, copper-doped iron oxide nanoparticles suitable for dual MRI/PET imaging, significantly reducing production time and controlling particle size.

Contribution

The study presents a novel microwave synthesis technique that produces 50 nm dextran-coated iron oxide nanoparticles doped with copper in just 5 minutes, improving efficiency over traditional methods.

Findings

Microwave synthesis reduces reaction time from 2 hours to 5 minutes.

Successfully incorporates 64Cu into nanoparticles for dual imaging.

Produces size-controlled nanoparticles within the 20-100nm range.

Abstract

Research into developing dual modality probes enabled for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) has been on the rise recently due to the potential to combine the high resolution of MRI and the high sensitivity of PET. Current synthesis techniques for developing multimodal probes is largely hindered in part by prolonged reaction times during radioisotope incorporation - leading to a weakening of the radioactivity. Along with a time-efficient synthesis, the resulting products must fit within a critical size range (between 20-100nm) to increase blood retention time. In this work, we describe a novel, rapid, microwave-based synthesis technique to grow dextran-coated iron oxide nanoparticles doped with copper (DIO/Cu). Traditional methods for coprecipitation of dextran-coated iron oxide nanoparticles require refluxing for 2 hours and result in approximately 50 nm diameter particles. We demonstrate that microwave synthesis can produce 50 nm nanoparticles with 5 minutes of heating. We discuss the various parameters used in the microwave synthesis protocol to vary the size distribution of DIO/Cu, and demonstrate the successful incorporation of 64Cu into these particles with the aim of future use for dual-mode MR/PET imaging.