Self-assembly and alterable relaxivity of an organic cation-encapsulated gadolinium-containing polyoxometalate

A new amphiphilic molecule bearing poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and quaternary ammonium group, was designed and synthesized to encapsulate paramagnetic GdIII-containing polyoxometalate (Gd-POM) through electrostatic interaction for obtaining a water-soluble organic–inorganic hybrid building block based on POM. The yielding organic cation-encapsulated Gd-POM (OCEP-Gd) complex exhibited water-solubility and amphiphility, leading to the spontaneous self-assembly into a regular vesicular structure with PEO chains towards water phase and POM units locating at the middle. The vesicular aggregate which has a regular monolayer structure, was further studied by means of dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction. Due to the synergy of different building units, the self-assembly of the complexes was demonstrated to be efficient to adjust the ability of Gd-POM to accelerate relaxation of water-proton, which results from the paramagnetic property of Gd-POM, to a large extent. The present work provides a new methodology to obtain water-soluble hybrid building blocks based on POM, which may generate more hybrid self-assembly structures in aqueous solution and further direct POM-based materials towards biomedical applications.