A Microfluidic Micro-MRI Set-Up to Assess the Specificity of Targeted Contrast Agents on a Living Cell Monolayer

Nicolas Gargam¹, Marie Poirier-Quinot¹, Jean-Sbastien Raynaud², Philippe Robert², Luc Darrasse¹

The development of targeted contrast agents (CA) is of great interest to increase the specificity of MRI. Proof of concept studies are required to establish the detectability of the CA and analyze the role of molecules and cells in the contrast mechanisms. This study proposes a full method to detect a single KB cell layer in a microfluidic channel by micro-MRI at 2.35T to assess the specificity of P866 (Guerbet, France), a CA which targets the folate receptor on cells membrane. The proposed set-up can be extended to different molecular targets and other CA such as USPIOs.