In vivo visualization of small metastatic lesion in sentinel lymph node using immunological methods

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25670545
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Radiation science
• Research Institution: National Cancer Center Japan
• Principal Investigator: Fujii Hirofumi 国立研究開発法人国立がん研究センター, 先端医療開発センター, 分野長 (80218982)
• Research Collaborator: OHNUKI Kazunobu 国立研究開発法人国立がん研究センター, 先端医療開発センター・機能診断開発分野, RI管理者
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: センチネルリンパ節 / 免疫応答 / 小転移病巣 / 胚中心 / 抗体遺伝子改編酵素 / 分子イメージング

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Imaging of immunological changes inside sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) might be surrogate in vivo imaging methods of metastatic status of SLNs because most parts of SLNs are occupied by non-tumor cells such as immune cells.
Our study revealed that the number of B cells insides SLNs increases in the early phase of metastases and these B cells tends to form germinal centers (GCs). The results of mouse experiments using EMT6 mammary tumors cells with the expression of tdTomato suggested that these GCs would grow by the reaction to tumor cells.
Our study indicated that imaging of objects that could respond to the growth of tumor cells inside SLNs would be useful to in vivo visualization of metastatic status of SLNs.

Free Research Field

画像診断学