Optical coherence tomography enables longitudinal evaluation of cell graft-directed remodeling in stroke lesions.

Stem cell grafting can promote glial repair of adult stroke injuries during the subacute wound healing phase, but graft survival and glial repair outcomes are perturbed by lesion severity and mode of injury. To better understand how stroke lesion environments alter the functions of cell grafts, we employed optical coherence tomography (OCT) to longitudinally image mouse cortical photothrombotic ischemic strokes treated with allogeneic neural progenitor cell (NPC) grafts. OCT angiography, signal intensity, and signal decay resulting from optical scattering were assessed at multiple timepoints across two weeks in mice receiving an NPC graft or an injection of saline at two days after stroke.

Optical coherence tomography enables longitudinal evaluation of cell graft-directed remodeling in stroke lesions.

Stem cell grafting can promote glial repair of adult stroke injuries during the subacute wound healing phase, but graft survival and glial repair outcomes are perturbed by lesion severity and mode of injury. To better understand how stroke lesion environments alter the functions of cell grafts, we employed optical coherence tomography (OCT) to longitudinally image mouse cortical photothrombotic ischemic strokes treated with allogeneic neural progenitor cell (NPC) grafts. OCT angiography, signal intensity, and signal decay resulting from optical scattering were assessed at multiple timepoints across two weeks in mice receiving an NPC graft or an injection of saline at two days after stroke.

High-throughput deep tissue two-photon microscopy at kilohertz frame rates.

High-speed laser scanning microscopes are essential for monitoring fast biological phenomena. However, existing strategies that achieve millisecond time resolution with two-photon microscopes (2PMs) are generally technically challenging and suffer from compromises among imaging field of view, excitation efficiency, and depth penetration in thick tissue. Here, we present a versatile solution that enables a conventional video-rate 2PM to perform 2D scanning at kilohertz frame rates over large fields of view.

MRI Detection of Lymph Node Metastasis through Molecular Targeting of C-C Chemokine Receptor Type 2 and Monocyte Hitchhiking.

Biopsy is the clinical standard for diagnosing lymph node (LN) metastasis, but it is invasive and poses significant risk to patient health. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been utilized as a noninvasive alternative but is limited by low sensitivity, with only ∼35% of LN metastases detected, as clinical contrast agents cannot discriminate between healthy and metastatic LNs due to nonspecific accumulation. Nanoparticles targeted to the C-C chemokine receptor 2 (CCR2), a biomarker highly expressed in metastatic LNs, have the potential to guide the delivery of contrast agents, improving the sensitivity of MRI.