Researcher: Melissa Cadena
Dendritic cells (DCs) play a central role in regulating immune responses and are widely applied in cancer immunotherapy, autoimmune disease treatments, and vaccine development. A major barrier to clinical translation is the inability to noninvasively monitor DC delivery and trafficking in vivo. Traditional methods such as histology and flow cytometry require invasive sampling and provide only static endpoint data, limiting insight into dynamic immune processes.
To address this challenge, we are developing an ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging strategy to track nanoparticle-labeled DCs in vivo. This approach enables real-time, longitudinal visualization of DC migration to lymph nodes. In addition to spatial tracking, ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging capture functional biomarkers such as oxygen saturation, hemoglobin levels, vascular remodeling, and lymph node size, offering a more comprehensive picture of early therapeutic response.
Our studies show that hyperbranched gold nanoconstructs (HBGNCs) efficiently and safely label bone marrow-derived DCs without impairing cell viability or function. In vivo imaging confirmed detectable photoacoustic signal in draining lymph nodes as early as two days post-injection, with signal intensity increasing over time, indicating active DC accumulation.
These findings highlight the potential of ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging to provide a minimally invasive platform for assessing DC-based immunotherapies by enabling simultaneous visualization of cell trafficking and functional biomarkers. This capability can inform delivery strategies, improve evaluation of treatment efficacy, and accelerate the clinical translation of immunotherapy applications.
References
[1] Kim.M, VanderLaan. D, Lee. J , Choe. A, Kubelick. K.P, Kim. J, and Emelianov. S.Y, Hyper-Branched Gold Nanoconstructs for Photoacoustic Imaging in the Near-Infrared Optical Window, Nano Letters 2023 23 (20), 9257-9265
[2] Manuela Sauter, Reinhard J. Sauter, Henry Nording, Marcus Olbrich, Frederic Emschermann, Harald F. Langer, Protocol to isolate and analyze mouse bone marrow derived dendritic cells (BMDC), STAR Protocols, Volume 3, Issue 3, 2022