Monitoring T-lymphocyte trafficking in tumors undergoing immune rejection.

Activated T cells, isolated from animals that had rejected a tumor (E.G7-OVA) expressing chicken ovalbumin, were labeled with citrated superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles at an intracellular iron concentration of up to 0.5 pg/cell. Injection of these labeled T cells into animals bearing E.G7-OVA tumors undergoing immune rejection resulted in tumor infiltration of these cells, which was detectable as a heterogeneous decrease in intensity in T(2)-weighted MR images. T-cell infiltration was confirmed by immunohistochemical staining of tumor sections obtained postmortem and was shown to colocalize with iron that had been stained using Prussian blue. Tumor rejection was correlated with the uptake of labeled T cells, since the infiltration of labeled T cells was only observed in those tumors that went on to regress. This technique should assist in the elucidation of those factors that are important in mediating tumor immune rejection.