Moriel Vandsburger1, Batya Cohen1, Yoseph Addadi1, Marina Radoul1, Michal Neeman1
1Biological Regulation, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Recruitment of fibroblasts by solid tumors plays a critical role in initiation, progression and metastatic dissemination. As such, cancer associated fibroblasts are attractive as potential avenues for novel anti-cancer therapies. MRI of fibroblast recruitment could enable assessment of drug efficacy on the cellular level, but is hindered by limitations of cell labeling techniques. We examined the potential of ferritin over-expression for quantitative MRI tracking of fibroblasts recruitment to human ovarian carcinoma both In Vitro, and in vivo. Our results indicate even under conditions of sparse populations of tagged cells, over-expression of ferritin can be used for quantitative cell tracking.