title: Monitoring bone marrow-originated mesenchymal stem cell traffic to myocardial infarction sites using magnetic resonance imaging.
abstract: How stem cells promote myocardial repair in myocardial infarction (MI) is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to noninvasively monitor and quantify mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) from bone marrow to MI sites using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). MSC were dual-labeled with an enhanced green fluorescent protein and micrometer-sized iron oxide particles prior to intra-bone marrow transplantation into the tibial medullary space of C57Bl/6 mice. Micrometer-sized iron oxide particles labeling caused signal attenuation in T(2)*-weighted MRI and thus allowed noninvasive cell tracking. Longitudinal MRI demonstrated MSC infiltration into MI sites over time. Fluorescence from both micrometer-sized iron oxide particles and enhanced green fluorescent protein in histology validated the presence of dual-labeled cells at MI sites. This study demonstrated that MSC traffic to MI sites can be noninvasively monitored in MRI by labeling cells with micrometer-sized iron oxide particles. The dual-labeled MSC at MI sites maintained their capability of proliferation and differentiation. The dual-labeling, intra-bone marrow transplantation, and MRI cell tracking provided a unique approach for investigating stem cells' roles in the post-MI healing process. This technique can potentially be applied to monitor possible effects on stem cell mobilization caused by given treatment strategies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Small Animal Imaging, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia 30912, USA.
authors.forename: Yidong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Autumn
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schumacher
authors.forename: Yuhui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Jimei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Xingming
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: William D
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.forename: Tom C-C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Hu
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D045164:Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplantation; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins