Biosynthetic Gas Vesicles from Halobacteria NRC-1: A Potential Ultrasound Contrast Agent for Tumor Imaging.

ABSTRACT: Ultrasound contrast agents are valuable for diagnostic imaging and drug delivery. Generally, chemically synthesized microbubbles (MBs) are micro-sized particles. Particle size is a limiting factor for the diagnosis and treatment of many extravascular diseases. Recently, gas vesicles (GVs) from some marine bacteria and archaea have been reported as novel nanoscale contrast agents, showing great potential for biomedical applications. However, most of the GVs reported in the literature show poor contrast imaging capabilities due to their small size, especially for the in vivo condition. In this study, we isolated the rugby-ball-shaped GVs from Halobacteria NRC-1 and characterized their contrast imaging properties in vitro and in vivo. Our results showed that GVs could produce stable an

SUBMITTER: Wei M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9229964 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature