Gd(III)-induced Supramolecular Hydrogelation with Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Performance for Enzyme Detection

Here we report a supramolecular hydrogel based on Gd(III)-peptide complexes with dramatically enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) performance. The hydrogelations were formed by adding Gd(III) ion to the nanofiber dispersion of self-assembling peptides naphthalene-Gly-Phe-Phe-Tyr-Gly-Arg-Gly-Asp (Nap-GFFYGRGD) or naphthalene-Gly-Phe-Phe-Tyr-Gly-Arg-Gly-Glu (Nap-GFFYGRGE). We further showed that, by adjusting the molar ratio between Gd(III) and the corresponding peptide, the mechanical property of resulting gels could be fine-tuned. The longitudinal relaxivity (r 1 ) of the Nap-GFFYGRGE-Gd(III) was 58.9 mM −1  S −1 , which to our knowledge is the highest value for such peptide-Gd(III) complexes so far. Such an enhancement of r 1 value could be applied for enzyme detection in aqueous solutions and cell lysates.