Targeting Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSC) using Pulsed Focused Ultrasound: Implications for Stem Cell Therapy

Ali Ziadloo¹, Scott R. Burks¹, Aneeka Chaudhry¹, Eric M. Gold¹, Dana D. Dean¹, Bobbi K. Lewis¹, Kay Jordan¹, Victor Frenkel¹, Joseph A. Frank¹

Stem cell therapy shows great potential to treat various diseases but can be limited by poor targeting to tissues. We demonstrate that pulsed focused ultrasound (pFUS) creates non-destructive mechanical effects which trigger expression of proinflammatory cytokines, and used pFUS in the kidney to enhance migration of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). Mouse kidneys were treated with pFUS followed by superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticle (SPION)-labeled human MSCs. In vivo and ex vivo T2* MRI of the kidney revealed increased accumulation of MSCs to pFUS-treated kidneys versus control kidneys, and was confirmed by histological examination including immunohistochemisrty.