Rod-shaped plant virus nanoparticles as imaging agent platforms
AssigneeCase Western Reserve University
InventorsNicole Steinmetz, Michael Bruckman
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A rod-shaped plant virus having an interior surface and an exterior surface, and at least one imaging agent that is linked to the interior and/or exterior surface is described. The rod-shaped viruses can be combined into larger spherical nanoparticles. A rod-shaped plant virus or spherical nanoparticles including an imaging agent can be used in a method of generating an image of a tissue region of a subject such as a tumor or atherosclerotic tissue by administering the virus particle to the subject and generating an image of the tissue region of the subject to which the virus particle has been distributed.
Claims4
A spherical nanoparticle imaging platform, comprising a spherical arrangement of the coat proteins of one or more rod-shaped plant virus particles linked to an imaging agent on an interior surface of the virus particle, formed by thermal transition of the rod-shaped virus particles, wherein the imaging platform has a longitudinal relaxivity of greater than about 10 mM−1S−1 per linked imaging agent when measured at 60 mHz at a physiological pH.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.