title: A non-genetic approach to labelling acute myeloid leukemia and bone marrow cells with quantum dots.
abstract: The difficulty in manipulation of leukemia cells has long hindered the dissection of leukemia pathogenesis. We have introduced a non-genetic approach of marking blood cells, using quantum dots. We compared quantum dots complexed with different vehicles, including a peptide Tat, cationic polymer Turbofect and liposome. Quantum dots-Tat showed the highest efficiency of marking hematopoietic cells among the three vehicles. Quantum dots-Tat could also label a panel of leukemia cell lines at varied efficiencies. More uniform intracellular distributions of quantum dots in mouse bone marrow and leukemia cells were obtained with quantum dots-Tat, compared with the granule-like formation obtained with quantum dots-liposome. Our results suggest that quantum dots have provided a photostable and non-genetic approach that labels normal and malignant hematopoietic cells, in a cell type-, vehicle-, and quantum dot concentration-dependent manner. We expect for potential applications of quantum dots as an easy and fast marking tool assisting investigations of various types of blood cells in the future.
authors.forename: Yanwen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Dongming
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Chenxi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Zhengwei J
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.forename: Timothy P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Singleton
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Xuejun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Yin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D058948:Cell Tracking / Q000379:methods*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D018922:HL-60 Cells; D006801:Humans; D020014:K562 Cells; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000473:pathology*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*; D045663:Quantum Dots; D013194:Staining and Labeling / Q000379:methods; D014162:Transfection