Emerging Engineered Magnetic Nanoparticulate Probes for Molecular MRI of Atherosclerosis: How Far Have We Come?

Abstract

Atherosclerosis is a chronic, progressive, immunoinflammatory disease of the large and medium-sized arteries, and a major cause of cardiovascular diseases. Atherosclerosis often progresses silently for decades until the occurrence of a major catastrophic clinical event such as myocardial infarction, cardiac arrest and stroke. The main challenge in the diagnosis and management of atherosclerosis is to develop a safe, noninvasive technique that is accurate and reproducible, which can detect the biologically active high-risk vulnerable plaques (with ongoing active inflammation, angiogenesis and apoptosis) before the occurrence of an acute clinical event. This article reviews the events involved in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis in light of recently advanced understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of the disease. Next, we elaborate on the interesting developments in molecular MRI, by describing the recently engineered magnetic nanoparticulate probes targeting clinically promising molecular and cellular players/processes, involved in early atherosclerotic lesion formation to plaque rupture and erosion.

Keywords::

• angiogenesis
• atherosclerosis
• cell adhesion molecules
• gadolinium
• heat shock proteins
• iron oxide nanoparticles
• MRI
• platelets

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science, Research and Commonwealth of Australia, AISRF grant (BF030016) and BioDeakin, Deakin University. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science, Research and Commonwealth of Australia, AISRF grant (BF030016) and BioDeakin, Deakin University. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.