Dynamic tracking of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) following intravenous administration in mice model

Introduction: In the past decades, human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) have sparked interest in cellular therapy due to their immunomodulatory properties. Nevertheless, the fate of hUC-MSCs in the body remains poorly understood. This study aimed to investigate the biodistribution, homing and clearance of systemically administered hUC-MSCs in healthy BALB/c mice model. Methods: hUC-MSCs were labelled with GFP-Luc2 protein, followed by characterisation with flow cytometry. Upon intravenous infusion of transduced hUC-MSCs into the healthy BALB/c mice, the cells were dynamically monitored through the bioluminescent imaging (BLI) approach. Results: Transduction of hUC-MSCs with GFP-Luc2 not only preserved the characteristics of MSCs, but also allowed live monitoring of transduced cells in the mice model. Upon systemic administration, BLI showed that transduced hUC-MSCs first localised predominantly in the lungs of healthy BALB/c mice and mainly remained in the lungs for up to 3 days before eventually cleared from the body. At terminal sacrifice, plasma chemistry biomarkers remained unchanged except for C-peptide levels, which were significantly reduced in the hUC-MSCs group. Histopathological findings further revealed that hUC-MSCs infusion did not cause any adverse effects and toxicity to lung, liver and heart tissues. Conclusions: Collectively, systemically administrated hUC-MSCs was safe and demonstrated dynamic homing capacity before eventually disappearing from the body

Elevated neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio and decreased platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio are associated with poor prognosis in multiple myeloma

Elevated inflammatory markers are associated with poor outcomes in various types of cancers; however, their clinical significance in multiple myeloma (MM) have seldom been explored. This study investigated the prognostic relevance of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR) in MM. Totally 559 MM patients were included in this study. NLR, PLR and MLR were calculated from whole blood counts prior to therapy. Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariate Cox proportional models were used for the evaluation of the survival. It has shown that newly diagnosed MM patients were characterized by high NLR and MLR. Elevated NLR and MLR and decreased PLR were associated with unfavorable clinicobiological features. Applying cut-offs of 4 (NLR), 100 (PLR) and 0.3 (MLR), elevated NLR, MLR and decreased PLR showed a negative impact on outcome. Importantly, elevated NLR and decreased PLR were independent prognostic factors for progression-free survival. Thus, elevated NLR and MLR, and decreased PLR predict poor clinical outcome in MM patients and may serve as the cost-effective and readily available prognostic biomarkers

Luminescence properties of Tb3+-doped oxyfluoride scintillating glasses

Transparent oxyfluoride glasses doped with Tb3+ were prepared by melt quenching method. The transmittance spectra show the glasses have good transmittance in the visible spectrum region. The emission spectra under 376 nm light and X-ray excitations were recorded. Tb3+ doped oxyfluoride glasses show intense green emissions under both excitations. The optimum concentrations of Tb3+ ion are around 8 mol% and around 10 mol% under 376 nm light excitation and X-ray excitation, respectively. The lifetimes of 541 nm emission of oxyfluoride glasses doped with Tb3+ are in the range from 2.65 ms to 3.02 ms. The results indicate that Tb3+-doped oxyfluoride glasses could be an X-ray scintillating material suitable to X-ray detection for slow event. © 2013 Elsevier B.V