In Vivo Imaging Analysis System - Xenogen IVIS Spectrum

描述(申请人提供)：各种各样的荧光染料、蛋白质和纳米颗粒可用于活体分子成像。为了活体成像，已经开发了各种靶向标记细胞的方法，使用具有特定代谢活动的反应底物，检测细胞特定表面分子的抗体策略，以及利用荧光和生物发光底物引入报告蛋白的各种转基因策略。所有这些方法都极大地提高了跟踪特定细胞在分化过程中或特定生物过程(如转移或干细胞移植)的时间过程中的活动的能力。该共享仪器方案是为了购买一台IVIS成像系统光谱仪器(Xenogen/Caliper生命科学公司)。这一新一代仪器是为活体小动物的生物发光和荧光探针的高灵敏度成像而设计的。该仪器具有灵活的荧光成像配置，包括反射和透射式照明选项以及大型可扫描滤光片。多个透光位置与用于获得表面形貌的结构光相结合，提供了执行3D层析重建所需的数据。它将由15名研究人员使用，资金来自6个R01拨款，3个P01拨款，1个K奖和2个R21 NIH拨款。目前，所有研究人员都在使用动物牺牲后取回的组织和细胞来评估这些组织内的生物活动，或者已经在其他设施进行了合作研究，以使用新仪器将支持的拟议方法学方法获得初步数据。使用所提出的仪器将使我们能够以高通量、非侵入性和非破坏性的方式跟踪标记细胞在活体动物和完整的取材后组织中的活动。波士顿大学医学院提供的这种仪器为我们充分利用波士顿大学医学院正在进行的许多转基因动物、癌细胞系和干细胞研究项目的技术能力增加了一个重要的新维度。拟议的仪器将作为波士顿大学医学院的共享仪器核心进行开发，并将使众多研究人员能够将这一新的成像技术与其他成像和定量方法相结合，如细胞分选、共焦显微镜以及MicroCT和MRI分析，这些方法目前都是波士顿大学的核心设施。将使用该仪器的研究项目涉及癌症、血液学、免疫学、肺部、骨科、眼科和肾脏研究等领域的研究项目。在活体动物体内跟踪细胞活动、跟踪细胞生长和跟踪细胞运动的能力与干细胞、癌症和药物治疗的发展具有巨大的相关性。使用这种方法的研究在动物使用方面也是具有成本效益的，允许在不对动物实施安乐死的情况下对细胞活动进行多次连续测量。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A wide variety of fluorescent dyes, proteins and nanoparticles can be used for in vivo molecular imaging. Various targeting approaches to tag cells for in vivo imagining have been developed using reactive substrates for specific metabolic activities, antibody strategies to detect cell specific surface molecules and various transgenic strategies to introduce reporter proteins that make use of fluorescent and bioluminescent substrates. All of these approaches have led to an immense increase in the ability to track the activities of specific cells during differentiation or over the time course of specific biological processes such as metastasis or stem cell transplantation. This shared instrumentation proposal is for the purchase an IVIS Imagining System Spectrum Instrument (Xenogen/Caliper Life Sciences Inc). This new generation instrumentation is designed for high sensitivity imaging of bioluminescent and fluorescent probes in live small animals. The instrument has flexible imaging configurations for fluorescence, including reflection and transmission illumination options and large scannable filter sets. Multiple transillumination positions, combined with structured light for obtaining surface topography, provides the necessary data to perform 3D tomographic reconstructions. It will be used by 15 investigators funded by 6 R01 grants, 3 P01 grants, a K award, and 2 R21 NIH grants. Currently, all of the investigators are using retrieved tissues and cells after animal sacrifice to assess biological activities within these tissues, or have carried out collaborative studies at other facilities to obtain preliminary data using the proposed methodological approaches that would be supported by the new instrumentation. The use of the proposed instrumentation will enable us to follow in a high throughput, non- invasive and non destructive manner the activities of the tagged cells both in living animals and within intact post retrieval tissues. The availability of this instrumentation at Boston University Medical School adds an important new dimension to our technical abilities to take full advantage of many of the transgenic animals, cancer cell lines, and stem cell research projects that are ongoing at Boston University Medical School. The proposed instrumentation will be developed as a shared instrument core at both Boston University Medical School and will enable the numerous investigators to integrate this new imagining technology with other imaging and quantitative approaches such as cell sorting, confocal microscopy and microCT and MRI analysis that are all currently available as core facilities at Boston University. The research projects that will use this instrument address research projects in cancer, hematological, immunological, pulmonary, orthopedics, ophthalmology and renal research. The ability to follow cell activities, track cell growth and follow cell movement within living animals has immense relevance to development of stem cell, cancer and pharmacological therapies. Studies using this type of approach are also cost effective in terms of animal use allowing for many consecutive measurements of cell activities to be made with out euthanasia of the animal.