NANOPARTICLE-BASED CT IMAGING TECHNIQUE FOR LONGITUDINAL AND QUANTITATIVE STEM CELL TRACKING WITHIN THE BRAIN: APPLICATION IN NEUROPSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS - ISBE 2015 Conference

Oshra Betzer ^1,3,4 Amit Shwartz ² Menachem Motiei ⁴ Chaya Brodie ^2,3 Gal Yadid ^1,2 Rachela Popovtzer ^3,4

¹Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan
²Everard and Mina Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan
³Institutes of Nanotechnology & Advanced Materials, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan
⁴Faculty of Engineering, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan

A critical problem in the development and implementation of stem cell-based therapy is the lack of reliable, noninvasive means to image and trace the cells post-transplantation and evaluate their biodistribution, final fate, and functionality. In this study, we developed a gold nanoparticle-based CT imaging technique for longitudinal mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) tracking within the brain. We applied this technique for noninvasive monitoring of MSCs transplanted in a rat model for depression. Our research reveals that cell therapy is a potential approach for treating neuropsychiatric disorders. Our results, which demonstrate that cell migration could be detected as early as 24 h and up to one month post-transplantation, revealed that MSCs specifically navigated and homed to distinct depression-related brain regions. We further developed a noninvasive quantitative CT ruler, which can be used to determine the number of cells residing in a specific brain region, without tissue destruction or animal scarification. This technique may have a transformative effect on cellular therapy, both for basic research and clinical applications.