Recent literatures have reported that the targeted nanoscale ultrasound contrast agents are becoming more and more important in medical application, like ultrasound imaging, detection of perfusion, drug delivery and molecular imaging and so on. In this study, we fabricated an uniform nanoscale bubbles (257 nm with the polydispersity index of 0.458) by incorporation of antibody targeted to vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) into the nanobubbles membrane by using avidin-biotin interaction. Some fundamental characterizations such as nanobubble suspension, surface morphology, particle size distribution and zeta potential were investigated. The concentration and time-intensity curves (TICs) were obtained with a self-made ultrasound experimental setup in vitro evaluation. In addition, in order to evaluate the contrast enhancement ability and the potential tumor-targeted ability in vivo, normal Wistar rats and nude female BALB/c mice were intravascular administration of the nanobubbles via tail vein injection, respectively. Significant contrast enhancement of ultrasound imaging within liver and tumor were visualized. These experiments demonstrated that the targeted nanobubbles is efficient in ultrasound molecular imaging by enhancement of the contrast effect and have potential capacity for targeted tumor diagnosis and therapy in the future.
Targeted nanobubbles have been reported to improve the contrast effect of ultrasound imaging due to the enhanced permeation and retention effects at tumor vascular leaks. In this work, the contrast enhancement abilities and the tumor targeting potential of a self-made VEGFR2-targeted nanobubble ultrasound contrast agent was evaluated in-vitro and in-vivo. Size distribution and zeta potential were assessed. Then the contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging of the VEGFR2 targeted nanobubbles were evaluated with a custom-made experimental apparatus and in normal Wistar rats. Finally, the in-vivo tumor-targeting ability was evaluated on nude mice with subcutaneous tumor. The results showed that the target nanobubbles had uniform distribution with the average diameter of 208.1 nm, polydispersity index (PDI) of 0.411, and zeta potential of -13.21 mV. Significant contrast enhancement was observed in both in-vitro and in-vivo ultrasound imaging, demonstrating that the self-made target nanobubbles can enhance the contrast effect of ultrasound imaging efficiently. Targeted tumor imaging showed less promising result, due to the fact that the targeted nanobubbles arriving and permeating through tumor vessels were not many enough to produce significant enhancement. Future work will focus on exploring new imaging algorithm which is sensitive to targeted nanobubbles, so as to correctly detect the contrast agent, particularly at a low bubble concentration.
KEYWORDS: Ultrasonography, Tumors, In vitro testing, In vivo imaging, Liver, Video, Veins, Signal attenuation, Life sciences, Toxic industrial chemicals
Nanoscale bubbles (nanobubbles) have been reported to improve contrast in tumor-targeted ultrasound imaging due to the enhanced permeation and retention effects at tumor vascular leaks. In this work, a self-made nanobubble ultrasound contrast agent was preliminarily characterized and evaluated in-vitro and in-vivo. Fundamental properties such as morphology appearance, size distribution, zeta potential, bubble concentration (bubble numbers per milliliter contrast agent suspension) and the stability of nanobubbles were assessed by light microscope and particle sizing analysis. Then the concentration intensity curve and time intensity curves (TICs) were acquired by ultrasound imaging experiment in-vitro. Finally, the contrast-enhanced ultrasonography was performed on rat to investigate the procedure of liver perfusion. The results showed that the nanobubbles had good shape and uniform distribution with the average diameter of 507.9 nm, polydispersity index (PDI) of 0.527, and zeta potential of -19.17 mV. Significant contrast enhancement was observed in in-vitro ultrasound imaging, demonstrating that the self-made nanobubbles can enhance the contrast effect of ultrasound imaging efficiently in-vitro. Slightly contrast enhancement was observed in in-vivo ultrasound imaging, indicating that the nanobubbles are not stable enough in-vivo. Future work will be focused on improving the ultrasonic imaging performance, stability, and antibody binding of the nanoscale ultrasound contrast agent.
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