In vivo microcomputed tomography

描述(由申请人提供)：本申请的主要目标是购买活体微计算机断层扫描(In Vivo MicroCT)仪器。这种仪器可以在高分辨率(16微米)下对活体啮齿动物的组织结构进行三维可视化。此外，数字数据允许高度定量地确定各种结构参数。虽然MicroCT最常用于分析骨骼，但它也可用于可视化各种其他正常和病理组织，包括软骨、肌肉、脂肪、血管和肿瘤。微型CT仪器将设在宾夕法尼亚大学小动物成像设施(SAIF)，该设施拥有一个综合系统，使用各种成像方式对小鼠和大鼠进行纵向评估。高分辨率微CT将代表着对现有成像服务的重大改进，并将补充SAIF中现有的基于光、荧光、超声和核成像技术。可以在麻醉下扫描整个小鼠或大鼠的一部分，然后动物恢复，几天、几周或几个月后扫描同一部位。事实上，这消除了纵向研究中令人困惑的动物间差异，重要的是，可以研究单个动物随年龄或治疗方法的变化。以纵向方式重复扫描活体动物更具科学性，并减少了任何特定研究所需的动物数量。这节省了拨款，而且减少研究中使用的动物数量是动物福利的良好做法。该仪器将由一个由来自宾夕法尼亚大学工程、牙科、医学和兽医学院的教职员工组成的委员会管理。同样，用户群来自这四所学校，还包括来自费城另外两家机构的用户，费城儿童医院(CHOP)和坦普尔大学。 活体啮齿动物的高分辨率成像对于能够在各种动物模型中正确跟踪实验疾病和衰老的过程至关重要。从研究啮齿动物肌肉骨骼、癌症和代谢性疾病中获得的信息将直接应用于更好地了解人类的类似疾病状态。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary objective of this application is to purchase an in vivo microcomputed tomography (in vivo microCT) instrument. This instrument permits the three-dimensional visualization of tissue structure at high-resolution (16 micron) in living rodents. Furthermore, the digital data permits highly quantitative determination of a variety of structural parameters. Although used most frequently for analysis of the bony skeleton, microCT can also be used to visualize a variety of other normal and pathological tissues, including cartilage, muscle, fat, vasculature, and tumor. The microCT instrument will be located in the University of Pennsylvania Small Animal Imaging Facility (SAIF) which has an integrated system for longitudinal evaluation of mice and rats using a wide-variety of imaging modalities. High-resolution microCT will represent a significant improvement on the available imaging services and will complement the light-based, fluorescence, ultrasound, and nuclear imaging technologies that already exist in the SAIF. An entire mouse, or part of a rat can be scanned under anesthesia and then the animal recovered, and the same site scanned days, weeks, or months later. Indeed this eliminates the confounding inter-animal variation in longitudinal studies, and importantly, changes with age or treatment in a single animal can be studied. Scanning live animals, repeatedly, in a longitudinal manner is more scientifically robust, and reduces the number of animals needed for any given study. This saves grant dollars, as well the reduction in the number of animals used in a study is good practice for animal welfare. The instrument will be administered by a committee of faculty members drawn from the Engineering, Dental, Medical, and Veterinary Schools at Penn. Similarly, the user group is drawn from these four Schools and also includes users from two other Philadelphia-based institutions, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Temple University. High resolution imaging of live rodents is crucial for being able to properly follow the course of experimental disease and aging in a wide-variety of animal models. Information gained from studying rodent musculoskeletal, cancer, and metabolic diseases will have direct translational application to better understanding similar disease states in humans.