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In vivo monitoring leukemia growth - with green fluorescent protein or CFSE (Sep/04/2009 )

Do you know if is it possible to monitor the growth of leukemia cells (previously stained with GFP or CFSE) in vivo, similarly to what it has been done with several other GFP-expressing cancer cells (rev. Hoffman R.Green fluorescent protein imaging of tumour growth, metastasis, and angiogenesis
in mouse models.Lancet Oncol. 2002 Sep;3(9):546-5) ?
My idea was to stain cells with CFSE or transfect with GFP gene, inject cells intravenously and after, at fixed time points, bleed the animals and measure through flow cytometry the number of fluorescent cells vs normal cells or the absolute number of fluorescent cells/ml of blood.
Do you know if it feasible or if somebody has already done this?

Thanks

-canotto-

CFSE may dilute out b/c you can really only see a good signal out to 7 divisions so this will only work for short experiments.

Stably transducing the cells with a GFP-expressing vector should theoretically work. The only potential issue could be silencing of the GFP. Some of the viral vectors are can be prone to silencing (MSCV for one).

-miBunny-

miBunny on Sep 5 2009, 02:06 AM said:

CFSE may dilute out b/c you can really only see a good signal out to 7 divisions so this will only work for short experiments.

Stably transducing the cells with a GFP-expressing vector should theoretically work. The only potential issue could be silencing of the GFP. Some of the viral vectors are can be prone to silencing (MSCV for one).



what do you mean as "short" experiment?

-canotto-

short= under a week

-miBunny-