Affiliated Bayi Brain Hospital, General Hospital of Beijing Military Region, Clinical College of General Hospital of Beijing Military Region, Anhui Medical University, Beijing, China,
Biotechnol Lett. 2013 Dec;35(12):1997-2004. doi: 10.1007/s10529-013-1304-5. Epub 2013 Aug 2.
Neural stem cells (NSCs) have great prospects in therapy for neurological disorders. However, the correlation between improved function and stem cell transplantation has not been fully elucidated. A non-invasive method for stem cell tracking is crucial for clinical studies. In the present study, NSCs were infected with lentiviral vectors, and the expression of transferrin receptor (TfR) in neural stem cells after lentivirus transfection (TfR-NSC) was confirmed by western blot analysis. TfR-NSCs were incubated with 1.8 nM ultra-small super-paramagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (USPIOs) or transferrin (Tf)-conjugate of USPIO nanoparticles (Tf-USPIOs). Tf-USPIO enhanced the cellular iron content in TfR-NSCs 80 ± 18 % compared to USPIOs. These results demonstrated that TfR overexpressed in neural stem cells specifically internalized Tf-USPIOs. Furthermore, the results indicate that TfR reporter imaging may be a valuable way to evaluate the efficacy of neural stem cell treatment.
神经干细胞（NSCs）在神经疾病的治疗中有很大的前景。然而，功能改善与干细胞移植之间的相关性尚未完全阐明。一种非侵入性的干细胞追踪方法对于临床研究至关重要。在本研究中，通过慢病毒载体感染 NSCs，通过 Western blot 分析确认神经干细胞转铁蛋白受体（TfR）转染后（TfR-NSC）的表达。TfR-NSC 与 1.8 nM 超小超顺磁性氧化铁纳米颗粒（USPIO）或转铁蛋白（Tf）-USPIO 纳米颗粒缀合物孵育。与 USPIO 相比，Tf-USPIO 将 TfR-NSC 中的细胞铁含量提高了 80±18%。这些结果表明，在神经干细胞中过度表达的 TfR 特异性内化了 Tf-USPIO。此外，结果表明，TfR 报告基因成像可能是评估神经干细胞治疗效果的一种有价值的方法。
