There is an enormous unmet medical need for non-invasive methods to assess lung fibrosis that can distinguish between active disease and stable scar. Here, we report on a gadolinium-containing contrast agent Gd-CHyd that targets fibrogenesis (active fibrosis) by undergoing a condensation reaction with allysine, an abundant aldehyde motif on fibrosing tissue. This probe reacts with aldehydes at a rate that is an order of magnitude faster than the parent probe Gd-Hyd. This faster reactivity leads to higher accumulation of the probe in the lungs of bleomycin treated mice (mouse model of lung fibrosis) and two-fold contrast enhancement relative to Gd-Hyd.
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