ABSTRACT
Lymphocytes are often the “effectors” of an immune reaction. Thus, they typically need to traffic to the relevant region or to draining lymph nodes. This trafficking is key to their functionality and can be monitored using MRI. However, research using 19F MRI for tracking these cells in vivo has thus far only been carried out by a few groups, in part because lymphocytes are difficult to label with sufficient 19F to overcome detection limits. Furthermore, these cells can undergo rapid expansion, which further complicates tracking, especially quantification of cell numbers. Regardless, the technique is very promising and the current state of the art is presented here. We also briefly discuss other techniques for tracking lymphocytes in vivo, as well as multimodal imaging strategies.
