Manganese-Based Single-Atom Contrast Agents with High Magnetic Resonance Imaging T1-weighted Enhancement for Tumor

Motivation: While manganese-based enhancement of MRI is an alternative to gadolinium-based considering NSF, the toxicity of contrast-origin free Mn2+ should also be mitigated; manganese-single-atom could be a novel candidate for contrast agents with approved maximized atom utilization structure. Goal(s): Our goal was to investigate the performance of manganese-single-atom MRI enhancement both in vitro and in vivo. Approach: After characterized structure, its contrast enhancement in vitro and mouse models of subcutaneous tumor and liver metastases were performed at 3.0T. Results: With well-defined coordinate structure contrast, manganese-single-atom showed high r1 over 36mM-1s-1 in aqueous solution and contrasted to distinguish tumor from normal tissue, especially liver-targeted probe. Impact: The first attempt to apply manganese-single-atom in MEMRI improves that the paramagnetic metal-single-atom is the novel and ideal candidate for MRI contrast agents with charming high performance, which expand its biomedical application beyond approved therapeutic functions.