REVIEWS  CELL LABELING 

The Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2005 December;49(4):349-60

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Imaging reporter genes for cell tracking with PET and SPECT

Acton P. D. ¹, Zhou R. ²

¹ Department of Radiology, Thomas Jefferson University Philadelphia, PA, USA 2 Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA, USA

Transplantation of cells into damaged tissue has tremendous therapeutic potential in a number of disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease and myocardial infarction. Positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission tomography (SPECT) are highly sensitive imaging modalities, which can detect and track these cellular implants through a number of mechanisms. The stable transfection of cells with a reporter gene, which can be visualized using a radioactive PET or SPECT reporter probe, allows the repeated visualization of the migration and function of cells. These imaging techniques can be used to assess cell trafficking with methods that are easily translatable to humans. This review describes several reporter genes for PET and SPECT, and compares them against other techniques and imaging modalities.