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Abstract #4177

19F MRI Tracking of Dendritic Cells in a Novel Migration Assay

Fernando Bonetto1, Mangala Srinivas1, Bettina Weigelin2, Luis Cruz Ricondo1, Arend Heerschap3, Carl Figdor1, I.J. de Vries1

1Tumor Immunology, Nijmegen Centre for Molecular Life Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands; 2Cell Biology, Nijmegen Centre for Molecular Life Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands; 3Radiology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands


Dendritic cell migration is monitored and quantified by using 19F-Chemical Shift Spectroscoypic imaging (CSI) in a novel migration assay. 3D scaffolds specially designed to mimic biological tissue are used in this assay. The particular layered structure of the assay allows to assess cell migration and to perform the control experiment simultaneously. Cells were labeled with a perfluorocarbon compound. Our results demonstrate that 19F-CSI at 7T is suitable to track cell migration in this type of opaque assays. The migration rates obtained in this way are comparable to clinical results suggesting that the proposed migration assays properly mimics in-vivo conditions.