Multivalent Hosts for Hyperpolarized Xenon Enabling in vivo MRI Visualization of Tumor Cell SurfaceGlycans

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Novel non-invasive diagnostic imaging techniques are highly sought after within the concept of personalized medicine for fostering better therapy monitoring and improved drug development. Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can become one of the key technologies but is, however, limited to the detection of rather abundant molecules. With 99.999% of the molecules remaining "silent" in this technique, MRI has a large unused potential. Recently developed special techniques unleash this potential for a limited amount of time through a process called spin hyperpolarization prior to the MRI scan. The typical approach with certain nuclei being hyperpolarized in a molecular tracer fails to access target tissues where delivery and specific uptake exceeds the lifetime of the hyperpolarization. Addressing the target through functionalized molecular units and only combining these reporters subsequently with the hyperpolarized nuclei in situ significantly expands the range of applications. Xenon biosensors exactly capitalize on this idea and can be detected with outstanding sensitivity with 108-fold reduced acquisition times. However, applications in living tissue are still lacking. In this interdisciplinary project, we will develop novel nanocarriers that are receptive for a large number of hyperpolarized nuclei. By combining this sensor platform design with complementary advances in production of hyperpolarized xenon and related detection techniques for the dissolved noble gas, we aim for the visualization of challenging biomarkers such as tumor cell-surface glycans.