Title

Tracking iron oxide labelled mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in a rat model of hepatic cirrhosis

Authors

Abdulwahab Noorwali^1,*, Mamdooh Faidah², Naushad Ahmed³, Abdulhadi Bima⁴

Affiliation

¹Stem Cell Unit, King Fahd Medical Research Centre, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia; ²Department of Medical Laboratory, College of Health Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589 Saudi Arabia; ³Department of Radiology, King Abdul Aziz University Hospital, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 2189, Saudi Arabia; ⁴Department of Clinical Biochemistry, King Abdul Aziz University Hospital, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 2189, Saudi Arabia.

Email

Abdulwahab Noorwali - E-mail: anoorwali@kau.edu.sa; Mamdooh Faidah - E-mail: mfaidah@kau.edu.sa; Naushad Ahamed - E-mail: nashlib@gmail.com; Abdulhadi Bima - E-mail: abima@kau.edu.sa; *Corresponding author

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received December 4, 2018; Accepted December 24, 2018; Published January 31, 2019

Homing and tumor attenuation potential of BM-MSCs labelled with superparamagnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) in a rat model of hepatic cirrhosis was evaluated. Rat BM-MSCs were derived, characterized and labelled with SPIONs (200 nm; 25 mg Fe/ml). Hepatic cirrhosis was induced in Wistar rats (n=30; 10/group) with carbon tetrachloride (CCl4; 0.3 mL/kg body weight) injected twice a week for 12 weeks. Group-I was administered vehicle (castor-oil) alone; Group-IIreceived two doses of unlabelled BM-MSCs (3x106 cells) and Group-III received two doses of SPIONs labelled BM-MSCs (3x106 cells) via tail vein injection (0.5 ml) at weekly intervals. All animals were sacrificed after two weeks for histological, radiological and biochemical analysis.Derived BM-MSCs demonstrated MSCs related CD markers. Histology confirmed induction of hepatic cirrhosis with CCL4. Levels of alanine-aminotransferase, aspartate-aminotransferase, alkaline-phosphatase and gamma glutamyl-transferase returned to normal levels following treatment with BM-MSCs. Uptake and homing of SPIONs labelled BM-MSCs, and reduction in the size of cirrhotic nodules were confirmed using transmission electron microscopy and magnetic resonance imaging respectively. BM-MSCs reduced the pathological effects of CCL4 induced hepatic cirrhosis and labelling BMMSCs with SPIONs were non-toxic and enabled efficient tracking using non-invasive methods.

Keywords

Stem cells, Liver Cirrhosis, Nanoparticles, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Transmission Electron Microscopy, in vivo

Citation

Noorwali et al. Bioinformation 15(1): 1-10 (2019)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.