One-pot synthesis of water-soluble superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles and their MRI contrast effects in the mouse brains

• A simple process was developed to prepare PEG-SPIONs and PEG/PEI-SPIONs.
• The SPIONs exhibited excellent aqueous dispersibility.
• The synthesized SPIONs showed good contrast effect in MR phantom tests.
• The SPIONs showed good T2* MRI contrast effects in mouse brains.

Water-soluble superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) were synthesized by the thermal decomposition of iron (III) acetylacetonate (Fe(acac)3) in the mixture of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and poly(ethylene imine) (PEI). The average sizes of the SPIONs are in the range of 6–12 nm, which could be tuned by adjusting the synthesis temperature and molecular weight of PEI. Benefiting from the coating of hydrophilic PEG and PEI, the resulted SPIONs showed excellent colloidal stability in deionized water and other physiological buffers. The XRD patterns indicate that the obtained SPIONs are magnetite. The PEG/PEI-SPIONs exhibited high r2/r1 ratio. In vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the mouse brains after intravenous injection of the SPIONs showed their good contrast effect. Considering the facile fabrication process and excellent imaging performance of the water soluble PEG-SPIONs and PEG/PEI-SPIONs, it is believed that the SPIONs will find great potential in advanced MRI.