Imaging of single human carcinoma cells in vitro using a clinical whole-body magnetic resonance scanner at 3.0 T
✍ Scribed by Jens Pinkernelle; Ulf Teichgräber; Fabian Neumann; Lukas Lehmkuhl; Jens Ricke; Regina Scholz; Andreas Jordan; Harald Bruhn
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2005
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 234 KB
- Volume
- 53
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0740-3194
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✦ Synopsis
Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to examine whether single human carcinoma cells labeled with iron oxide nanoparticles could be detected by magnetic resonance (MR) imaging on a clinical 3‐T scanner using a surface coil only. WiDr human colon carcinoma cells were loaded with two kinds of iron oxide nanoparticles differing by coating and size: aminosilan‐coated (MagForce) and carboxy‐dextran‐coated particles (Resovist). The latter were preferred by the colon carcinoma cell line used here and taken up much faster (12 h) than the smaller carboxydextran‐coated Resovist (48 h). Labeled single carcinoma cells, distributed in an agarose gel in a monodisperse layer as controlled by light microscopy, became detectable as punctuate signal extinctions when using a small circularly polarized surface coil in conjunction with a T~2~*‐weighted GE sequence at 3 T. The threshold for the detectability of labeled colon carcinoma cells ranged at a load of 4–5 μg iron/10^6^ cells. Obviating the need for special hardware additions, this study opens a new lane for single‐cell tracking on clinical 3‐T MR scanners amenable to patient studies. Magn Reson Med 53:1187–1192, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.