Carnegie Mellon scientists develop tool that uses MRI to visualize gene expression in living animals
“Ahrens’ new approach uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to monitor gene expression in real-time. Because MRI images deep tissues non-invasively and at high resolution, investigators don’t need to sacrifice animals and perform laborious and costly analysis.
To trigger living cells into producing their own contrast agent, Ahrens gave them a gene that produces a form of ferritin, a protein that normally stores iron in a non-toxic form. This metalloprotein acts like a nano-magnet and a potent MRI “reporter.””
“Ahrens and his colleagues constructed a gene carrier, or vector, that contained a gene for the MRI reporter. They used a widely studied vector called a replication-defective adenovirus that readily enters cells but doesn’t reproduce itself. Ahrens injected the vector carrying the MRI reporter gene into brains of living mice and imaged the MRI reporter expression periodically for over a month in the same cohort of animals. The research showed no overt toxicity in the mouse brain from the MRI reporter.”
Note the convergence of technologies that led to this new research tool: fMRI, development of a reporter gene, and a safe viral vector targeted at brain tissue. More and more, separate technologies are being combined in powerful new ways.
Posted by fly at 12:43 PM