title: In vivo tracking of neuronal-like cells by magnetic resonance in rabbit models of spinal cord injury.
abstract: In vitro experiments have demonstrated that neuronal-like cells derived from bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells can survive, migrate, integrate and help to restore the function and behaviors of spinal cord injury models, and that they may serve as a suitable approach to treating spinal cord injury. However, it is very difficult to track transplanted cells in vivo. In this study, we injected superparamagnetic iron oxide-labeled neuronal-like cells into the subarachnoid space in a rabbit model of spinal cord injury. At 7 days after cell transplantation, a small number of dot-shaped low signal intensity shadows were observed in the spinal cord injury region, and at 14 days, the number of these shadows increased on T2-weighted imaging. Perl's Prussian blue staining detected dot-shaped low signal intensity shadows in the spinal cord injury region, indicative of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticle-labeled cells. These findings suggest that transplanted neuronal-like cells derived from bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells can migrate to the spinal cord injury region and can be tracked by magnetic resonance in vivo. Magnetic resonance imaging represents an efficient noninvasive technique for visually tracking transplanted cells in vivo.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Hospital, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030001, Shanxi Province, China.
authors.forename: Ruiping
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Medical Imaging Centre, Navy General Hospital, Beijing 100048, China.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Hospital, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030001, Shanxi Province, China.
authors.forename: Jianding
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, Shanxi Dayi Hospital, Taiyuan 030032, Shanxi Province, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030001, Shanxi Province, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xie
keywords: bone marrow; bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells; grants-supported paper; in vivo tracking; magnetic resonance; neural regeneration; neuronal-like cells; neuroregeneration; stem cells; transplantation