Properties, With Applications To MRI
Gadolinium salts are of primary interest for relaxation agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This technique exploits the fact that Gd3+ has an electronic configuration of f7. Seven is the largest number of unpaired electron spins possible for an atom, so Gd3+ is a key component in the design of highly paramagnetic complexes.
To generate the relaxation agents, Gd3+ sources such as GdCl3∙6H2O are converted to coordination complexes. GdCl3∙6H2O can not be used as an MRI contrasting agent due to its low solubility in water at the body's near neutral pH. "Free" gadolinium(III), e.g. GdCl2(H2O)6]+, is toxic, so chelating agents are essential for biomedical applications. Simple monodentate or even bidentate ligands will not suffice because they do not remain bound to Gd3+ in solution. Ligands with higher coordination numbers therefore are required. The obvious candidate is EDTA4-, ethylenediaminetetraacetate, which is a commonly employed hexadentate ligand used to complex to transition metals. In lanthanides, however, exhibit coordination numbers greater than six, so still larger aminocarboxylates are employed.
One representative chelating agent is H5DTPA, diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid. Chelation to the conjugate base of this ligand increases the solubility of the Gd3+ at the body's neutral pH and still allows for the paramagnetic effect required for an MRI contrast agent. The DTPA5- ligand binds to Gd through five oxygen atoms of the carboxylates and three nitrogen atoms of the amines. A 9th binding site remains, which is occupied by a water molecule. The rapid exchange of this water ligand with bulk water is a major reason for the signal enhancing properties of the chelate. The structure of Gd(DTPA)(H2O)]2- is a distorted tricapped trigonal prism.
The following is the reaction for the formation of Gd-DTPA:
Read more about this topic: Gadolinium(III) Chloride