Study On Technetium-99m Labeling Of Graphene Oxide Nanosheets Through Click Chemistry-Tc-99m Labeling Of Graphene Oxide Nanosheets

Graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets possess several advantages, such as a large surface, outstanding biocompatibility, and straightforward chemical modification capability. They also have great potential as a drug-carrier. In this article, we radiolabeled GO nanosheets with Tc-99m, which satisfies the potential needs of micro-SPECT imaging probes in pre-clinical and clinical research. GO nanosheets were synthesized through the modified Hummers' method, then GO nanosheets with azide group covalently functionalized in two steps were conjugated to DOTA (1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-N,N',N '',N'''-tetraacetic acid) and functionalized with an alkynyl group by means of click chemistry. Then through the addition and reduction of technetium-99m, the Tc-99m-DOTA-GO were attained. DOTA-conjugated GOs with lateral dimensions of 500-600 am were synthesized. Both atomic force microscopy (AFM) and FT-IR were performed to characterize the GO-DOTA. Labeling efficiency of GO-DOTA with Tc-99m was > 90% and radiochemical purities were > 96% with purification. We successfully synthesized graphene oxide derivatives, DOTA-conjugated GOs, via Click Chemistry, and it was labeled with Tc-99m for SPECT imaging. High radiolabeling efficiency makes GO nanosheets suitable platforms for future molecular imaging research.