Table 1 Intrahepatic animal stem cell tracking studies with dye-mediated optical imaging

Ma, 2014 [7]

Mice (75)

CCl4-induced ALF model

Xenogeneic BMSCs

DiR

Caudal vein/10⁶

At 5 days after transplantation, a strong fluorescent signal from labeled CXCR4 MSCs was almost distributed in the liver, whereas in the null group the liver and spleen transmitted nearly the same signal intensity

Sun et al., 2013 [8]

Rats (18)

CBDL-induced obstructive liver disease model

Allogeneic BMSCs

CM-DiI

Intrasplenic injection/10⁶

Detection of fluorescence-labeled cells after 1 week

The labeling procedure did not impair cytomophology

The fluorescent images showed that the IOD was significantly larger in experiment group, and the signals presented unevenly distribution in the fibrous liver tissue

Ikeda et al., 2008 [10]/Zhan et al., 2006 [11]

Rats (7/unknown)

CCl4-induced liver injury model

Allogeneic TGPCs/HSC

PKH26

Portal vein/10⁷

The red fluorescent cells demonstrated the capacity of stem cells to migrate, proliferate, and differentiate in pathologic hepatic environments after engraftment

Li et al., 2013 [12]

Mice (14)

MHCC97-H-induced HCC model

Xenogeneic BMSCs

RFP, GFP, BrdU, DAPI

Caudal vein/10⁵

Luminescent binucleated cells were seldom observed both in vitro and in vivo for a long-term follow-up period

After 4 days, most BMSCs grafted to the tumor focus, and after 20 days, labeled MSCs almost accumulated in the tumor stroma

Ezzat et al., 2012 [13]

Mice (40)

APAP-induced ALF model

Allogeneic ESCs

DiR, GFP

Intrasplenic injection/10⁶

DiR-labeled cells accumulated in the spleen within 30 min, moved to the liver at 3 hours, disseminated to almost all regions of the liver at 24 hours, and faded at 72 hours

GFP-positive cells were found under the liver capsule and were still detected after 2 weeks

Akham et al., 2015 [15]

Rats (6)

PHx-induced liver injury model

Allogeneic BMSCs

CPN

Caudal vein/10⁶

Postmortem liver tissue showed the presence of luminescent cells at the injury lesions and retained there

The labeling process did not impair the marker expression, multilineage differentiation ability, or cell viability

Yukawa et al., 2012 [16]

Mice (18)

CCl4-induced ALF model

Allogeneic AD-MSCs

QDs

Caudal vein/10⁶

Within 10 min, 70 % of fluorescent signal retained in the lungs and 30 % of signals came from the liver when AD-MSCs were transplanted with heparin

After 1 day, the accumulation rate decreased to 10 % in both organs and maintained for at least 2 days