There are a number of cell therapies that are either in clinical trials or moving toward clinical trials, particularly for diseases of the retina. One of the challenges with cell therapies is tracking the status of cells over time. Genetic manipulation can facilitate this, but it can limit the clinical application of the cells. There are a host of fluorophores that have been developed to assess the status of cells, but these molecules tend to be cleared rapidly from cells. There are preclinical strategies that use degradable scaffolds, and we hypothesized that these scaffolds could be used to track the state of cells during preclinical studies. In this work, we explored whether fluorophores could be delivered from simple scaffolds fabricated under extremely harsh conditions, be active upon release, and report on the cells growing on the scaffolds over time. We encapsulated CellROX® Green Reagent, and pHrodo™ Red AM in poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) scaffolds, showed that they could be delivered over weeks and were still active upon release and taken up by cells. These experiments provide the foundation for using scaffolds to deliver molecules to report on cells.

有许多细胞疗法正在临床试验中或正在走向临床试验，特别是对于视网膜疾病。细胞疗法的挑战之一是随着时间的推移跟踪细胞的状态。基因操作可以促进这一点，但是它会限制细胞的临床应用。已经开发出许多用于评估细胞状态的荧光团，但是这些分子倾向于从细胞中迅速清除。有使用可降解支架的临床前策略，我们假设这些支架可用于在临床前研究期间追踪细胞状态。在这项工作中，我们探索了荧光团是否可以从在极端苛刻条件下制造的简单支架中释放出来，释放后是否具有活性，并报告随着时间推移支架上生长的细胞。我们将CellROX®Gr​​een试剂和pHrodo™Red AM封装在聚（乳酸-乙醇酸共聚物）（PLGA）支架中，表明它们可以在数周内交付，并且在释放后仍然具有活性并被细胞吸收。这些实验为使用支架传递分子以报告细胞提供了基础。