Abstract
Clinical and basic scientific studies of stem cell-based therapies have shown promising results for cardiovascular diseases. Despite a rapid transition from animal studies to clinical trials, the mechanisms by which stem cells improve heart function are yet to be fully elucidated. To optimize cell therapies in patients will require a noninvasive means to evaluate cell survival, biodistribution and fate in the same subject over time. Cell labeling offers the ability to image distinct cell lineages in vivo and investigate the efficacy of these therapies using standard noninvasive imaging techniques. In this article, we will discuss the most promising cell labeling techniques for translation to clinical cardiovascular applications.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
Grant support was received from the National Institutes of Health Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NIH-NHLBI-R21/R33 HL89029) and Maryland Stem Cell Research Foundation (2008-MD-SCRFII-0399). Dara L Kraitchman is a co-inventor on pending US Patent pertaining to imaging-visible microcapsules. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.