Abstract #3866

In Vivo Tracking of Ferritin Over-Expressing Human Neural Progenitor Cells in the Rat Central Nervous System

Ksenija Bernau¹, Christina Lewis², Anna Petelinsek³, Masatoshi Suzuki⁴, Mary Elizabeth Meyerand,¹², Clive Svendsen⁵

¹Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States; ²Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States; ³Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States; ⁴Comparative Biosciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States; ⁵Regenerative Medicine Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States

The development of stem cell therapies for neurodegenerative diseases has made great progress in the past decade. The ability to track engrafted cells in vivo will be an essential tool in research and clinical translation of these methods. This research aims to develop a cell tracking method that is clinically translatable, leaves cell dynamics unaffected, and provides specific information regarding cell location and survival. Over-expression of the iron storage protein ferritin enables human neural progenitor cell detection on GE T2*-weighted images after engraftment in the rat brain.