The Application of Plant Viral Nanoparticles in Tissue-Specific Imaging - Nanotechnology for Biomedical Imaging and Diagnostics - page 405

(a) Pre-injection 2 h 4 h 6 h

1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8

(b) Pre-injection 2 h 4 h 6 h

1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8

(c)

1.8

CPMV-PEG-bombesin
CPMV-PEG

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1.6 ***

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1.4

1.2

1.0

0.8

Pre-injection 1 2 3 4 5 6

Time after injection (h)
figure 14.5 intravital fluorescence images of CpMV uptake in pC-3 prostate tumor.
(a) representative images ( n = 10) of Alexa Fluor 647-labeled CpMV-peG-bombesin (heat
map, above) uptake in the tumor (GFp signal, below) over time. Uptake is represented as
tumor/stroma ratio. Scale bar is 3 mm. (b) representative images ( n = 10) of Alexa Fluor
647-labeled CpMV-peG (heat map, above) uptake in the tumor (GFp signal, below) over time.
Uptake is quantified by the tumor/stroma ratio. Scale bar is 3 mm. (c) plot of mean tumor/
stroma ratio comparing uptake of CpMV-peG-bombesin to CpMV-peG. Uptake of CpMV-
peG-bombesin was significantly higher at all time points after 2 h ( p < 0.0001). (reprinted
with permission from ref. [69]. © elsevier.)

easier to distinguish. The ability to detect Mri contrast agents is extremely low, so
there is interest in coordinating multiple Gd 3+ ions to macromolecules in order to
enhance the relaxivity and hence sensitivity. VNps complexed with Mri contrast
agents offer two advantages: (1) due to their multivalency (see chapter 8), a large