Abstract #1683

Alginate-Coated Magnetic Nanoparticles as a New Platform for Noninvasive Calcium MR Imaging In Vivo

Debbie Anaby¹, Liat Avram¹, Amnon Bar-Shir², Ofer Sadan³, Smadar Cohen⁴, Niva Segev-Amzaleg⁵, Dan Frenkel⁵, Daniel Offen³, Yoram Cohen¹

¹School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; ²Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States; ³Department of neurology, Rabin Medical Center, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv; ⁴Avram & Stella Goldstein-Goren Department of Biotechnology Engineering, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel; ⁵Department of Neurobiology, The Goerge Weiss Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Calcium cations are involved in myriad of biological processes and pathologies. Despite the crucial role played by calcium in living systems, the noninvasive determination or imaging of calcium levels in opaque samples and deep tissues remains a formidable challenge. Here we describe a new platform based on superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles coated with mono-disperse alginate, which enables specific detection of Calcium, by MRI. These nanoparticles were shown to detect calcium secreted in Quinolinic Acid lesions in rats brains in vivo. This new non-invasive MRI biomarker for calcium has the potential to act as a calcium probe in in vivo settings.