In vivo assessment of tumour associated macrophages in murine melanoma obtained by low-field relaxometry in the presence of iron oxide particles

Tumour-associated macrophages (TAM) are forced by cancer cells to adopt an anti-inflammatory phenotype and secrete factors to promote tumour invasion thus being responsible for poor patient outcome. The aim of this study is to develop a clinically applicable, non-invasive method to obtain a quantitative TAM detection in tumour tissue. The method is based on longitudinal proton relaxation rate (R1) measurements at low field (0.01–1 MHz) to assess the localization of ferumoxytol (clinical approved iron oxide particles) in TAM present in melanoma tumours, where R1 = 1/T1. R1 at low magnetic fields appears highly dependent on the intra or extra cellular localization of the nanoparticles thus allowing an unambiguous TAM quantification. R1 profiles were acquired on a Fast Field-Cycling relaxometer equipped with a 40 mm wide bore magnet and an 11 mm solenoid detection coil placed around the anatomical region of interest. The R1 values measured 3 h and 24 h after the injection were significantly different. At 24 h R1 exhibited a behavior similar to “in vitro” ferumoxytol-labelled J774A.1 macrophages whereas at 3 h, when the ferumoxytol distribution was extracellular, R1 exhibited higher values similar to that of free ferumoxytol in solution. This finding clearly indicated the intracellular localization of ferumoxytol at 24 h, as confirmed by histological analysis (Pearls and CD68 assays). This information could be hardly achievable from measurements at a single magnetic field and opens new horizons for cell tracking applications using FFC-MRI.