Theranostics of Epitaxially Condensed Colloidal Nanocrystal Clusters, through a Soft Biomineralization Route

Clustering of biocompatible magnetic iron oxide nanocrystallites (MIONs) is a synthetic strategy which improves magnetic manipulation, imaging, and sensing for biomedical applications. In this work we describe the synthesis of condensed clustered MIONs obtained through biomineralization and epitaxial aggregation in the presence of alginate at ambient conditions, mimicking the process that so far has been achieved only by nature, in iron-oxidizing bacteria. These condensed-type magnetic nanostructures exhibit higher magnetophoretic responses compared to other types of magnetic colloids and clustered systems. The soft environmental conditions used for the synthesis of the magnetic nanosystems enables the alginate coating material to retain high drug loading ability for the doxorubicin molecule as well as strong binding proclivity for radionuclides. The strong binding of doxorubicin forms the physical basis to obtain magnetic nanocarriers, where the selective release of the drug occurs only under the action of external stimuli, such as remote magnetic hyperthermia or increased temperature (i.e., inflamed tissue). Furthermore, the strong binding proclivity of radionuclides facilitates in vivo SPECT imaging. The witnessed properties are obtained by using only ∼17 wt % alginate content in the magnetic superstructures; thus, very high saturation magnetization value is imparted to the condensed system, expressed in terms of the hybrid's mass. In spite of the fact that the magnetic nanoassemblies are characterized by low hydrodynamic diameter, ∼45 nm, the transverse relaxivity reaches the remarkable value of 250 s^-1 mM ^-1_Fe (for negative MION contrast agents of this size), a property that validates the use of these nanostructures as effective MRI contrast agents.