Multifunctional Transferrin Encapsulated GdF3 Nanoparticles for Sentinel Lymph Node and Tumor Imaging.

The transferrin encapsulated GdF3 nanoparticles have been fabricated via biomineralization method. The obtained GdF3@Tf NPs show an attractive T2MRI and CT enhancement effect. Furthermore, PET and NIR imaging capacity are integrated into nanoparticles through conjugating with radionuclide 64Cu and fluorescent dye Cy7. 64Cu-GdF3@Tf-Cy7 NPs are developed and applied in small animal multimodal imaging in vivo. Compared with the previous multimodal imaging agents, 64Cu-GdF3@Tf-Cy7 NPs enable not only precise sentinel lymph node (SLN) identification, but specific imaging for transferrin receptor overexpressed colorectal tumor in vivo. The results reveal that 64Cu-GdF3@Tf-Cy7 NPs are potential and efficient multimodal imaging agents for SLN and tumor preclinical imaging.