Table 3.

Dendrimers based molecular imaging agents

Contrast agents	Disease	Modality	Author	References
Mn(II) or Gd(III) chelating dendrimers	Soft tissues	MRI	Klemm et al	88, 91, 94
Dye-conjugated dendrimers	Single proteins and biomolecules in cells	Fluorescence imaging	Kim et al	95, 96
Dendrimer-entrapped AuNPs	Blood pool and tumor	CT	Peng et al	97–100
Dendrimers conjugated to iodinated-compounds	Human hepatocellular carcinoma	CT	Liu et al	97–100
Dendrimers conjugated with FA and Cu2+	Cancers	Synchrotron X-ray fluorescence analysis	Zhang et al	93
Folate-receptor targeted dendrimer nanoclusters labeled with Gd	Cancers	MR	Cheng et al	26
Dendrimer-based contrast agents modified on an atom-by-atom scale	Organs and other target-specific locations	Hybrid modality imaging	Longmire et al	79
Au DENPs loaded with Gd chelator/Gd(III) complexes modified with RGD peptide	Tumors	CT and MR	Chen et al	101, 102
Gd-loaded dendrimer-entrapped AuNPs	Major organs of rats or mice	CT/MR	Wen et al	25
Dendrimer modified with AuNP followed by Gd(III) chelation and acetylation of the remaining dendrimer terminal amine groups (Gd-Au DENPs)	Breast cancer	CT/MR	Li et al	103
FA-modified multifunctional Au DENPs loaded with Gd	Tumors	CT/MR	Chen et al	104
A probe consisting of the fourth generation (G(4)-PAMAM) dendrimer nanoparticles labeled with high-affinity conjugating ligands and an organic fluorescent dye fluorescein	Mitochondria	CAT microscopy	Denora et al	95
PEG modified Au DENPsa	As plaques	CT	Ye et al	107
Labeling Au DENPs with PEG and FIa	AS	CT	Qin et al	108
Dendrimers with 64Cu modified with LyP-1a	p32 proteins on activated macrophages	PET–CT	Seo et al	109
G8 dendrimers modified by Mn and antibody MDA2a	As lesions	MRI	Nguyen et al	110

Note:

^aThe usage of dendrimers based contrast agents in imagining of AS plaques.

Abbreviations: AS, atherosclerosis; Au DENPs, dendrimer-entrapped gold nanoparticles; AuNP, gold nanoparticle; CAT, confocal–atomic force microscopy–total internal reflectance fluorescence; CT, computed tomography; FA, folic acid; FI, fluorescein isothiocyanate; Gd, gadolinium; MR, magnetic resonance; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; PEG, polyethylene glycol; RGD, arginylglycylaspartic acid; PET, positron emission tomography.