ZIF-8 Film Coatings Render Polymeric Device Surfaces Addressable by 1H/129Xe MRI

Metal-organic framework (MOF) films synergize molecular-scale porosity with conformal surface chemistry on polymer substrates. We report a spectrally selective coating in which a ZIF-8 film, seeded by a Zn(II)-polydopamine (Zn-PDA) interlayer on polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), enables hyperpolarized 1 2 9 Xe MRI detection of the polymer surface, while conventional 1 H MRI delineates anatomy. The coating produces a film-bound 1 2 9 Xe resonance at 82.0 ppm in both water and fetal bovine serum. After 60 min, the resonance position remained unchanged, with signal-to-noise ratios decreasing by only 14.9% and 17.2%, respectively. Selective excitation yields coating-specific positive contrast on the 1 2 9 Xe channel; correspondingly, 1 H MRI reveals a distinct surface appearance likely due to altered local proton density and magnetic susceptibility. In phantoms, 1 2 9 Xe and 1 H images were co-registered with a center-point offset of 0.34 mm; in a flow simulator, the offset was 0.26 mm. A rat airway experiment confirmed in vivo spectral selectivity with a film-bound resonance near 92 ppm, co-localizing with 1 2 9 Xe ventilation and 1 H anatomical references. While demonstrated here using coated PTFE segments and direct xenon bubbling, these results provide a robust proof of concept for MOF-coated polymers as spectrally selective 1 2 9 Xe MRI labels, warranting future physiological translation.