In vivo imaging of nanoparticle-labeled CAR T cells

Abstract

Significance Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Efforts are now underway to evaluate the efficacy of CAR T-cell therapy in solid tumors. However, a key limitation in the advancement of T-cell therapy is the lack of information on the biodistribution of the T cells in patients. Therefore, there is a need for the identification of translatable methods for tracking the therapeutic T cells noninvasively. We describe the mechanical labeling of CAR T cells with an FDA-approved iron oxide nanoparticle to demonstrate the noninvasive and multimodal imaging of the CAR T cells. This method may be utilized for monitoring T cells in clinical trials.