Copper-based contrast agents found suitable for MRI scanning
MRI images could be improved with the use of copper in contrast agents, an advance with the potential to help doctors diagnose patients’ conditions more easily and safely.
The discovery overturns conventional medical wisdom that copper is unsuitable for use in MRI contrast agents and could help to develop new imaging agents with potentially fewer risks and side effects than exist with those commonly in use.
Researchers from the Universities of Birmingham and St Andrews, plus Diamond Light Source, published their findings in PNAS after creating a highly elusive abiological copper site bound to oxygen donor atoms within a protein scaffold.
The team found that the new structure displayed highly effective levels of relaxivity, which is the ability of a contrast agent to influence the relaxation times of protons, which helps create clearer images during an MRI scan.
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In a statement, co-author Dr Anna Peacock, reader in Bioinorganic Chemistry at Birmingham University, said: “We prepared a new-to-biology copper–binding site which shows real potential for use in contrast agents and challenges existing dogma that copper is unsuitable for use in MRI.
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