In vivo flow cytometry combined with intravital microscopy to monitor kinetics of transplanted bone marrow mononuclear cells in peripheral blood and bone marrow

• Published in: Molecular biology reports Vol. 47; no. 1; pp. 1 - 10
• Main Authors: Wang, Fen, Wei, Dan, Suo, Yuanzhen, Zhu, Xi, Yuan, Yan, Gao, Wenyuan, Jiang, Hua, Wei, Xunbin, Chen, Tong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.01.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animal Anatomy; Animal Biochemistry; Biomedical and Life Sciences; blood; Bone marrow; bone marrow transplant; Bone marrow transplantation; Calvaria; Flow cytometry; Hematopoietic stem cells; Histology; Leukocytes (mononuclear); Life Sciences; Long bone; Microscopy; molecular biology; Morphology; Original Article; Peripheral blood mononuclear cells; skull; Stem cell transplantation; Homing; In vivo; Bone marrow mononuclear cells; Stem cell; Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
• ISSN: 0301-4851; 1573-4978; 1573-4978
• DOI: 10.1007/s11033-019-04608-x

Bone marrow mononuclear cells (BM-MNCs) transplantation has evolved as a promising experimental treatment in various regenerative therapy fields, especially in clinical hematopoietic stem cells transplantation (HSCT). In vitro methods have mainly been used to study the pre-clinical kinetics of BM-MNCs in mice after transplantation. And it is difficult to monitor the dynamic homing of BM-MNCs in living mice. The present study obtained the kinetics of transplanted BM-MNCs in the peripheral blood (PB) and the dynamic homing of BM-MNCs in the BM in living mice by a combination of in vivo flow cytometry (IVFC) and calvarium intravital microscopy. We found out that BM-MNCs were cleared rapidly from the PB and mainly localized to various hematopoietic tissues after transplantation. The number of BM-MNCs in the PB decreased over time accompanied by an increase in the BM indeed after transplantation. In addition, a lower number of BM-MNCs were found home to calvaria than long bone, probably indicating long bone marrow might also be an important hematopoietic organ. Clinical studies will benefit from non-invasive measurements to monitor the dynamic homing of transplanted cells. Our pre-clinical kinetics of BM-MNCs in living mice will have important clinical guiding significance in HSCT and other regenerative therapy fields.