Current clinical assessment of atherosclerotic plagues is suboptimal. The authors in the article designed functionalized superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles with TEG4, a recombinant human antibody, to target activated platelets. By using MRI, these nanoparticles can be utilized to study the process of atheroma pathogenesis.
Due to the wealth of actors involved in the development of atherosclerosis, molecular imaging based on the targeting of specific markers would substantiate the diagnosis of life threatening atheroma plaques. To this end, TEG4 antibody is a promising candidate targeting the activated platelets (integrin αIIbβ3) highly represented within the plaque. In this study, scFv antibody fragments were used to functionalize multimodal imaging nanoparticles. This grafting was performed in a regio selective way to preserve TEG4 activity and the avidity of the nanoparticles was studied with respect to the number of grafted antibodies. Subsequently, taking advantage of the nanoparticle bimodality, both near infrared fluorescence and magnetic resonance imaging of the atheroma plaque were performed in the ApoE −/− mouse model. Here we describe the design of the targeted nanoparticles, and a quantification method for their detection in mice, both ex vivo and in vivo, highlighting their value as a potential diagnosis agent.
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