MRI Technology That Non-Invasively Locates, Quantifies Specific Cells In The Body

�Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) isn't hardly for capturing detailed images of the body's frame.



Thanks to novel tomography reagents and technology developed by Carnegie Mellon University scientist Eric Ahrens, MRI can be used to visualize - with "exquisite" specificity - cell populations of interestingness in the living body. The ability to non-invasively locate and track cells, such as immune cells, will greatly aid the study and treatment of cancer, lighting, and autoimmune diseases, as well as provide a tool for advancing clinical translation of the emerging field of cellular regenerative medicine, by tracking stem cells for example.



Ahrens presented his enquiry on this new approach, called fluorocarbon labeling, Thursday, Aug. 21 at the 236th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia.



"With our engineering we seat image specific cells in real-time with exquisite selectivity, which allows us to track their location and movement and to count the apparent number of cells present. We then use conventional MRI to obtain a high-resolution image that places the labeled cells in their anatomic context," aforesaid Ahrens, an associate prof of biological sciences at the Mellon College of Science.



The ability to cartroad the movement and eventual location of specific immune cells is critical for understanding the cells' role in disease and curative mechanisms, and for developing effective cell-based therapeutics. Other MRI methods for visualizing cells use metal-based line agents, which can construct it hard to clear identify labeled cells in the body, according to Ahrens.



"The large background signal from mobile water and intrinsic tissue contrast differences can often make it challenging to unambiguously key regions containing these metal-ion labeled cells throughout the body, which is the current state of the art," Ahrens said.



Ahrens's new approach - fluorocarbon labeling - solves this problem by producing images that clearly show the labelled cells at their exact location in the body. Ahrens first labels the cells of interest with a perfluoropolyether (PFPE) nanoemulsion, which is a colloidal suspension of tiny fluorocarbon droplets. Then, he introduces the labelled cells into an brute subject and tracks the cells in vivo using 19F MRI.



While conventional MRI detects the nuclear magnetised resonance signal from protons contained in the wandering water in tissue, 19F MRI detects the signal from the nucleus of the fluorine atom. Fluorine is non normally submit in the body at sufficient concentrations to discover, so when Ahrens labels cells with PFPE, he can discover this fluorine 'tracer' with MRI later on the cells are transplanted into the body. The Ahrens' team has lately used the PFPE engineering to mark and lead dendritic cells and T cells in a mouse model of type I diabetes, a disease in which immune cells infiltrate the pancreas, attacking and damaging the body's own cells.



"Right now we're using our engineering to image key cell types mired in autoimmune diseases like type I diabetes, just our cellular MRI agents also canful be adapted to label other cell types, including cells from bone substance and stem cells. A key semipermanent application of our engineering science is to label and monitor cell-based therapeutics in humans," Ahrens said.



Recent advances in cell-based therapeutics research have focussed on training immune cells to neutralize diseases including cancer and diabetes and on directional stem cells to revitalize damaged tissues. Non-invasively visualizing these therapeutic cells in patients after transfer lav be a vexing problem, according to Ahrens, and any approaching that keister speed up the testing of these treatments will be exceedingly useful.



"Ideally we would label therapeutic cells with our cellular MRI agents in front they are implanted into a patient. In this way, we could employment MRI to visualize the movement of the therapeutic cells in the affected role to monitor whether they migrate to and remain in the desired tissues," explained Ahrens.




Ahrens's current process is funded by the National Institutes of Health.



About Carnegie Mellon:



Carnegie Mellon is a private inquiry university with a classifiable mix of programs in engineering, calculator science, robotics, business, public policy, fine arts and the liberal arts. More than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students receive an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovation. A small student-to-faculty ratio provides an opportunity for close interaction between students and professors. While technology is pervasive on its 144-acre Pittsburgh campus, Carnegie Mellon is too distinctive among leading research universities for the world-renowned programs in its College of Fine Arts. A global university, Carnegie Mellon has campuses in Silicon Valley, Calif., and Qatar, and programs in Asia, Australia and Europe. For more, ascertain http://www.cmu.edu/.



Source: Jocelyn Duffy

Carnegie Mellon University




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