Philipp Bhm-Sturm1, Markus Aswendt1, Laura Breucker1, Nadine Henn1, Luam Mengler1, Joanna Adamczak1, Eberhard D. Pracht1, Annette Tennstaedt1, Laura Mezzanotte2, Clemens Lwik2, Mathias Hoehn1
1In-Vivo-NMR, Max-Planck-Institute for Neurological Research, Cologne, Germany; 2Department of Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands
Stem cells are a promising candidate for new therapeutic approaches of acute and degenerative disorders of the brain. MRI of prelabeled cells allows to follow their spatio-temporal dynamics after implantation, however this provides little information on cell graft function. We present here a novel bimodal approach of bioluminescence imaging (BLI) and 19F MRI to track 19F labeled, luciferase+ stem cells in the mouse brain. As the luciferase is only expressed in viable cells, BLI gives information on cell graft vitality in addition to the purely structural information given by 19F MRI.
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