Abstract #3140

Protein Cages Filled with Gadolium Containing Branched Polymers

Lars Liepold¹, Joseph Frank², Mark Young³, Trevor Douglas¹

¹Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA; ²Diagnostic Radiology Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA; ³Plant Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA

Here we present a strategy to make highly efficient contrast agents by use of a branched polymer grown in the interior cavity of a protein cage. Gadolinium chelates are covalently linked to the monomers of the branched polymer resulting in 192 Gd³⁺ ions per cage. Here we report ionic relaxivity values of 20 sec^-1 mM^-1 and particle relaxivities of 3,821 sec^-1 mM^-1.