Synthesis of fluorescent-maghemite nanoparticles as multimodal imaging agents for amyloid-β fibrils detection and removal by a magnetic field

Early diagnosis in Alzheimer's disease (AD), before the onset of marked clinical symptoms, is critical in preventing the irreversible neuronal damage that eventually leads to dementia and ultimately death. Therefore, there is an urgent need for in vivo imaging agents, which are valuable as specific biomarkers to demonstrate the location and density of amyloid plaques in the living human brain. The present manuscript describes a novel method for selective marking of Aβ40 fibrils by non-fluorescent γ-Fe2O3 and fluorescent-magnetic γ-Fe2O3-rhodamine or γ-Fe2O3-Congo red nanoparticles, and the complete removal of the magnetized fibrils from the aqueous continuous phase by a magnetic field. These fluorescent-maghemite nanoparticles as multimodal imaging agents have a great advantage due to the combination of the magnetic and fluorescence imaging into one nanostructured system. This hybrid system, which selectively marks Aβ40 fibrils, might enable the early detection of plaques using both MRI and fluorescence microscopy, and therefore may be applied in in vivo AD diagnosis studies. These fluorescent-magnetic nanoparticles may also be useful as selective biomarkers to detect the location and the removal of other amyloid plaques derived from different amyloidogenic proteins that lead to neurodegenerative diseases, e.g., Parkinson's, Huntington's, mad cow, and prion diseases.