Can Labeled Human CD 34+ Lymphocytes be Used to Identify Sites of Angiogenesis Within Growing Tumors

摘要

We have proposed that CD34+ vascular endothelial progenitor (VEP) cells in blood can be used to transport therapeutic genes into areas of angiogenesis within growing breast cancer tumors. Our system is tumors (MDA-MB 231) grown in SCID mice. It was difficult to grow these tumors. We learned that NK cells and NKT cells had to be eliminated before tumors could grow. CD34+ cells were isolated from leukopacks and labeled with a lipophilic fluorescent dye, DiI. Leukopacks do not supply us with enough CD34+ cells to further isolate subsets of cells that have phenotypic markers of VEP.