Wang Yi, Zhang Kun, Xua Yong-Hua, Chen Hang-Rong
The Institute of Ultrasound Engineering in Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, 1 Yi-xue-yuan Road, Chongqing 400016, P.R. China.
Department of Medical Ultrasound, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Tongji University, 301 Yan-chang-zhong Road, Shanghai 200072, P. R. China.
ACS Biomater Sci Eng. 2018 Jan 8;4(1):248-256. doi: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.7b00779. Epub 2017 Dec 27.
Despite several reports on using silica hollow spheres as ultrasound contrast agents, they all suffer from their inherent drawbacks, e.g., poor imaging ability caused by highly rigid shell or large particles size that leads to failures of these particles in entering tumor tissues, no mesoporous channels to load other active molecules (e.g., fluorocarbons). In this report, amino groups-functionalized hollow colloidal organosilica nanospheres (HCONs) with approximately 260 nm in diameter are prepared. Depending on the thin and pure organosilica shell, the HCONs feature high elasticity beneficial for acquiring excellent ultrasonic imaging outcomes. Our in vitro experiment shows that the ultrasonic contrast increases 11 times and in vivo experiment also shows that the ultrasound imaging performance of tumor is improved for 1.5 times. More importantly, HCONs can load liquid perfluorohexane (PFH) capable of vaporizing into gas bubbles, which further enhance the ultrasonic imaging outcome. In addition, the organosilica nanospheres have a good biosafety, which is expected to become a new generation of ultrasound contrast agent.
尽管有几篇关于使用二氧化硅空心球作为超声造影剂的报道，但它们都存在固有的缺点，例如，由于外壳高度刚性或颗粒尺寸大导致成像能力差，这使得这些颗粒无法进入肿瘤组织，且没有介孔通道来负载其他活性分子（如碳氟化合物）。在本报告中，制备了直径约为260 nm的氨基官能化空心胶体有机硅纳米球（HCONs）。基于薄而纯的有机硅外壳，HCONs具有高弹性，有利于获得优异的超声成像效果。我们的体外实验表明超声造影增强了11倍，体内实验也表明肿瘤的超声成像性能提高了1.5倍。更重要的是，HCONs可以负载能够汽化成气泡的液体全氟己烷（PFH），这进一步增强了超声成像效果。此外，有机硅纳米球具有良好的生物安全性，有望成为新一代超声造影剂。
