Antje Arnold1,2, Yuguo Li1,3, Guanshu Liu1,3, Peter C.M. van Zijl1,3, Jeff W.M. Bulte1,2, Piotr Walczak1,2, and Kannie WY Chan1,3
1Radiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, 2Cellular Imaging Section and Vascular Biology Program, Institute for Cell Engineering, Baltimore, MD, United States, 3FM Kirby Research Center, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States
Cell
therapy is showing promise in treating neurological disorders, but cell
survival after transplantation is usually low, which is a major limiting factor
for achieving therapeutic efficacy. One of the major hurdles in translating
cell therapies to patients is the lack of non-invasive approaches to monitor
the cells and their microenvironment after transplantation. We developed an
injectable alginate hydrogel that supports cell survival and allows monitoring of
cell status using liposomes as the nanosensors after transplantation into the
brain. Hydrogel embedded cells survived better as compared to the cells without
the hydrogel, and cells transplanted using the nanosensor-labeled hydrogel could
be imaged using CEST-MRI.
