Hypoxia occurs in various diseases, including cancer, ischemia, and acute and chronic vascular diseases. Here we describe the design and synthesis of the first hypoxia-sensitive MRI contrast agents, SAGds. SAGds showed a pH-dependent r1 relaxivity change associated with intramolecular chelation of the nitrogen atom of the sulfonamide moiety to the Gd3+ center. There was a correlation between the pKa of the r1 relaxivity change and ...