Nanoparticles Based Stem Cell Tracking in Regenerative Medicine

Abstract

Stem cell therapies offer great potentials in the treatment for a wide range of diseases and conditions. With so many stem cell replacement therapies going through clinical trials currently, there is a great need to understand the mechanisms behind a successful therapy, and one of the critical points of discovering them is to track stem cell migration, proliferation and differentiation in vivo. To be of most use tracking methods should ideally be non-invasive, high resolution and allow tracking in three dimensions. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the ideal methods, but requires a suitable contrast agent to be loaded to the cells to be tracked, and one of the most wide-spread in stem cell tracking is a group of agents known as magnetic nanoparticles. This review will explore the current use of magnetic nanoparticles in developing and performing stem cell therapies, and will investigate their potential limitations and the future directions magnetic nanoparticle tracking is heading in.

The antimicrobial activity of nanoparticles: present situation and prospects for the future

“…8 Nanomaterials are materials that have at least one dimension (1-100 nm) in the nanometer scale range or whose basic unit in the three-dimensional space is in this range. 9 NPs in particular have demonstrated broad-spectrum antibacterial properties against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. For example, ZnO NPs were found to inhibit Staphylococcus aureus, and Ag NPs exhibit concentrationdependent antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.…”

Transient loading of CD34⁺ hematopoietic progenitor cells with polystyrene nanoparticles

“…1 New strategies utilizing viral vectors or, more recently, nanoparticles (NPs) attempt to manipulate these cell types or track or guide them to the place of action. 2,3 The use of NPs for HSC-and HPC-based (and concurrent and/or associated gene) therapies has received considerable attention, as it can circumvent efficacy and safety issues of the classical vehicles. 4,5 Owing to their small size, NPs possess new chemical and physical properties as compared to the corresponding bulk material.…”

Labeling of mesenchymal stem cells for MRI with single-cell sensitivity

“…Many clinical studies (clinicaltrials.gov) exploit the immunomodulatory and regenerative capacities [1][2][3][4][5][6] of multipotent mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). 7,8 However, the role of MSC in regenerative medicine is not fully understood and their direct or paracrine effects remain to be clarified.…”