Tracking stem cells with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles: perspectives and considerations

Abstract

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) have been used for diagnoses in biomedical applications, due to their unique properties and their apparent safety for humans. In general, SPIONs do not seem to produce cell damage, although their long-term in vivo effects continue to be investigated. The possibility of efficiently labeling cells with these magnetic nanoparticles has stimulated their use to noninvasively track cells by magnetic resonance imaging after transplantation. SPIONs are attracting increasing attention and are one of the preferred methods for cell labeling and tracking in preclinical and clinical studies. For clinical protocol approval of magnetic-labeled cell tracking, it is essential to expand our knowledge of the time course of SPIONs after cell incorporation and transplantation. This review focuses on the recent advances in tracking SPION-labeled stem cells, analyzing the possibilities and limitations of their use, not only focusing on myocardial infarction but also discussing other models.

In vitro toxicity screening of magnetite nanoparticles by applying mesenchymal stem cells derived from human umbilical cord lining

“…Among the most versatile NPs, superparamagnetic iron oxide NPs (IONPs), including magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 NPs), have currently aroused great interest due to their significant magnetic, chemical, thermal and mechanical properties (Akbarzadeh, Samiei, & Davaran, ), which make them suitable for biomedical (theranostic processes) (Dabrowska et al, ; Jasmin et al, ; Li et al, ), industrial (e.g., audio speaker, position sensing) and environmental (e.g., water purification from heavy metals) fields (Ataeefard, Ghasemi, & Ebadi, ; Wang, Li, Jiang, & Zhao, ; Wu, Wu, Yu, Jiang, & Kim, ). Despite their extensive use, the toxicity of IONPs is not yet fully understood, and additional research is still needed to define if their use is safe.…”

Iron nanoparticle-labeled murine mesenchymal stromal cells in an osteoarthritic model persists and suggests anti-inflammatory mechanism of action

“…This choice was made based on our available imaging hardware and despite this limitation we successfully achieved 200 μm resolution of the mouse knee. While iron oxide is a popular contrast agent choice for MRI cell tracking due to its improved sensitivity over other MRI contrast agents [36], we recognize that it can also cause signal voids that can be confused with air or other iron sources such as in an hemorrhage. In our study, particular care was taken to avoid the introduction of air at the injection site and no evidence of hemorrhage was observed at the time of DMM surgery.…”

<p>Efficient Labeling Of Mesenchymal Stem Cells For High Sensitivity Long-Term MRI Monitoring In Live Mice Brains</p>

“…This study aims to establish and characterize optimized protocols to monitor MSCs using a genetically engineered MSCs model labeled with iron oxide nanoparticles and visualized using MRI. To the best of our knowledge, there is no clinically approved iron oxide nanoparticle formulation to label MSCs (most clinically approved iron oxide nanoparticles were discontinued from the market due to safety or other reasons, 31 and the usage of the FDA-approved Ferumoxytol iron oxide nanoparticles to label the cells for MRI applications is considered as an "off label" use because it is only approved clinically to treat anemia patients with kidney diseases 32,33 ), and hence it is vital to fill this missing gap and present potential labeling formulations to the research community for further investigations.…”