Assessment of Manganese-Zinc Ferrite Nanoparticles as a Novel Magnetic Resonance Imaging Contrast Agent for the Detection of 4T1 Breast Cancer Cells

Tayebe Sobhani; Daryoush Shahbazi-Gahrouei; Mahboubeh Rostami; Maryam Zahraei; Amin Farzadniya

doi:10.4103/jmss.JMSS_59_18

Assessment of Manganese-Zinc Ferrite Nanoparticles as a Novel Magnetic Resonance Imaging Contrast Agent for the Detection of 4T1 Breast Cancer Cells

J Med Signals Sens. 2019 Oct 24;9(4):245-251. doi: 10.4103/jmss.JMSS_59_18. eCollection 2019 Oct-Dec.

Authors

Tayebe Sobhani¹, Daryoush Shahbazi-Gahrouei¹, Mahboubeh Rostami², Maryam Zahraei³, Amin Farzadniya⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
² Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
³ Department of Materials Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran.
⁴ Department of Radiology, Askarieh Hospital, Isfahan, Iran.

Abstract

Background: The aim of the study was to evaluate the potential of manganese-zinc ferrite nanoparticles (MZF NPs) as a novel negative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents for 4T1 (mouse mammary carcinoma) and L929 (murine fibroblast) cell lines.

Methods: MZF NPs and its suitable coating, polyethylene glycol (PEG) via covalent bonding, were investigated under in vitro condition. The cytotoxicity of MZF NPs was tested by 3-(4,5-dimethyl thiazolyl-2)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay after 12 and 24 h of incubation. To evaluate the potential of MZF NPs as T₂ MRI nanocontrast agent, images were obtained from phantom containing different Fe concentrations and T₂ relaxivity (r ₂) was measured. The viability of both 4T1 breast cancer and L929 murine fibroblast cell lines incubated with different Fe concentrations.

Results: In vitro T₂-weighted MRI showed that signal intensity of 4T1 cells was lower than that of L929 as control cells. T₂-weighted MRI showed that signal intensity of MZF NPs enhanced with increasing concentration of NPs. The values of 1/T₂ relaxivity (r ₂) for coated MZF NPs with PEG found to be 85.5 mM^-1 s^-1 which is higher than that of commercially clinical used (Sinerem) MRI contrast agent.

Conclusion: The results showed that MZF NPs have potential to detect breast cancer cells (4T1) and also have high contrast resolution between normal (L929) and cancerous cells (4T1) which is a suitable nanoprobe for T₂-weighted MR imaging contrast agents.

Keywords: 4t1 and l929 cells; contrast agents; magnetic resonance imaging; manganese-zinc ferrite nanoparticles.