Magnetic Resonance Angiography with Hour-Scale Duration after Single Low-Dose Administration of Biocompatible Gadolinium Oxide Nanoprobe.

Abstract

Long-term contrast-enhanced angiography offers significant advantages in theranostics for diverse vascular diseases, particularly in terms of real-time dynamic monitoring during acute vascular events; However, achieving vascular imaging with a duration of hours through a single administration of low-dose contrast agent remains challenging. Herein, a hyaluronic acid-templated gadolinium oxide (HA@Gd₂O₃) nanoprobe-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is proposed to address this bottleneck issue for the first time. The HA@Gd₂O₃ nanoprobe synthesized from a facile one-pot biomineralization method owns ultrasmall size, good biocompatibility, optimal circulation half-life (≈149 min), and a relatively high T₁ relaxivity (r₁) under both clinical 3 T (8.215 mM^-1s^-1) and preclinical 9.4 T (4.023 mM^-1s^-1) equipment. The HA@Gd₂O₃ nanoprobe-enhanced MRA highlights major vessels readily with significantly improved contrast, extended imaging duration for at least 2 h, and ultrahigh resolution of 0.15 mm under 9.4 T, while only requiring half clinical dosage of Gd. This technique can enable rapid diagnosis and real-time dynamic monitoring of vascular changes in a model of acute superior mesenteric vein thrombosis with only a single injection of nanoprobe. The HA@Gd₂O₃ nanoprobe-enhanced MRA provides a sophisticated approach for long-term (hour scale) vascular imaging with ultrahigh resolution and high contrast through single administration of low-dose contrast agent.