Pharmaceutical composition of nanoparticles

1. A pharmaceutical composition of multifunctional core-shell nanoparticles, each nanoparticle consisting of a core portion and a shell portion, wherein the core portion comprises hydrophobic poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and a detection-enhancing substance, and the shell portion comprises positively charged chitosan, wherein the positive charges on said nanoparticles prevent nanoparticle aggregation as a result of electrostatic repulsion between the adjacent nanoparticles having positive surface charges.

2. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 1 , wherein said chitosan is glycol chitosan, EDTA-chitosan, N-trimethyl chitosan, or chitosan derivatives.

3. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 1 , wherein the nanoparticles are prepared via an emulsion-diffusion-evaporation method.

4. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 1 , wherein the shell portion of the nanoparticles is further loaded with nucleic acids.

5. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 4 , wherein the nucleic acids are selected from the group consisting of DNA, plasmid DNA (pDNA), RNA or siRNA.

6. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 4 , wherein the nucleic acid is a reporter gene.

7. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 1 , wherein the shell portion of the nanoparticles is further loaded with a bioactive agent.

8. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 7 , wherein the bioactive agent comprises an anticancer drug.

9. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 7 , wherein the bioactive agent is protein or peptide.

10. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 7 , wherein the bioactive agent is an adenovirus vector.

11. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 1 , wherein the detection-enhancing substance is superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO).

12. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 11 , wherein the nanoparticles are administered through a blood vessel of an animal subject into a body of the animal subject for enhancing detection and characterization of lesions within the body using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedure.

13. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 11 , wherein the nanoparticles enter cells of the body via an endocytosis pathway.

14. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 11 , wherein said SPIO is an object suitable for receiving high-intensity focused ultrasound.

15. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 1 , wherein the detection-enhancing substance is quantum dots.

16. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 1 , wherein the quantum dots are CdSe/ZnS quantum dots.

17. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 1 , wherein the detection-enhancing substance is fluorescent quantum dots.

18. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 17 , wherein the nanoparticles are transdermally lodged in a target tissue of an animal subject and the fluorescent quantum dots are adapted for cell tracking.

19. A pharmaceutical composition of multifunctional core-shell nanoparticlos, each nanoparticle consisting of a core portion and a shell portion, wherein the core portion comprises hydrophobic poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and a detection-enhancing substance, and the shell portion comprises positively charged chitosan, wherein the positive charges on said nanoparticles prevent nanoparticle aggregation as a result of electrostatic repulsion between the adjacent positively charged nanoparticles, wherein the detection-enhancing substance is a bubble or an air bubble adapted for ultrasound detection.

20. The pharmaceutical composition of claim 19 , wherein the ultrasound detection is from outside a body of an animal subject.