Nanoprobes for In Vivo Cell Tracking

Abstract

AbstractCell-based immunotherapy has emerged as a promising therapy for the treatment of cancer. Measuring the changes in tumor volume and tumor markers post treatment has been the most common means of evaluating the therapeutic efficacy. In order to assess the consequences of a given therapy in real time, the development of efficient molecular probes and imaging modalities are urgently needed. Efficient molecular probes and imaging modalities will provide qualitative and quantitative real-time images with long-term stability in physiological conditions as well as low toxicity and high sensitivity for in vivo monitoring of the transplanted cells. Therapeutic cells can be intrinsically or extrinsically modified with proper molecular probes, amplified in vitro, and transferred back into the host. In this chapter, we will discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of multiple molecular imaging modalities as well as recent advances in molecular imaging probes. We will also address their application in relation to in vivo tracking of dendritic cells (DCs), natural killer (NK) cells, and T cells. Noninvasive molecular imaging techniques have great potential in the diagnostic and prognostic assessments of patients.KeywordsImmune cell trackingMolecular imaging modalitiesNanoprobes