Noninvasive in vivo tracking of adopted immune cells would help improve immunotherapy on glioblastoma. In this study, the authors tried to track adoptive CD8+ T lymphocytes in an in situ GL261 glioblastoma mouse model with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). CD8+ T lymphocytes from spleen of preimmunized GL261 glioblastoma mice were labeled with superparamagnetic iron oxide, with polylysine as transfection agent. From Prussian blue staining, the labeling efficiency was 0.77% ± 0.06%, without altering cell viability and function. From anti-CD8, and anti-dextran staining, superparamagnetic iron oxide could be seen in the cytoplasm. In vitro imaging of agar gel mixtures with different concentrations of labeled CD8+ T lymphocytes was done with a 3.0T MR T2*WI sequence. Higher cell concentrations showed lower signal values. Twenty-four hours after tail vein injection of labeled and unlabeled CD8+ T lymphocytes, imaging of GL261 mice brain showed black spots at the periphery of the tumor in the labeled group only. Brain tumor pathology further verified infiltration of labeled CD8+ T lymphocytes in the tumor. Thus, preimmunized CD8+ T lymphocytes could be efficiently labeled with superparamagnetic iron oxide and tracked both in vitro and in vivo with 3.0T MRI.
Keywords: T lymphocytes; glioblastoma; magnetic resonance imaging; superparamagnetic iron oxide.