Theranostic USPIO-Loaded Microbubbles for Mediating and Monitoring Blood-Brain Barrier Permeation.

ABSTRACT: Efficient and safe drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) remains to be one of the major challenges of biomedical and (nano-) pharmaceutical research. Here, we show that poly(butyl cyanoacrylate)-based microbubbles (MB), carrying ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) nanoparticles within their shell, can be used to mediate and monitor BBB permeation. Upon exposure to transcranial ultrasound pulses, USPIO-MB are destroyed, resulting in acoustic forces inducing vessel permeability. At the same time, USPIO are released from the MB shell, they extravasate across the permeabilized BBB and they accumulate in extravascular brain tissue, thereby providing non-invasive R₂*-based magnetic resonance imaging information on the extent of BBB opening. Quantitative change

SUBMITTER: Lammers T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4340520 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature