Abstract #1887
Quantification
of 3D T2*-Weighted MR Images Allows Evaluation of Different Viral Vectors for
Stable MR Reporter Gene Expression in the Rodent Brain
Greetje
Vande Velde1, Janaki Raman Rangarajan2, Tom Dresselaers1,
Jaan Toelen3, Zeger Debyser3, Veerle Baekelandt3,
Uwe Himmelreich1
1Biomedical NMR unit/MoSAIC, Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Flanders, Belgium; 2Medical Imaging
Research Center/MoSAIC, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Flanders,
Belgium; 3Molecular Medicine, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,
Leuven, Flanders, Belgium
Utilizing
lentiviral (LV)
and adeno-associated (AAV) viral vector systems for delivering MRI reporter
genes (e.g. ferritin) will allow stable labeling and in vivo visualization of
marked cells, but their potential limitations for MRI are often insufficiently
addressed. LV
injection resulted in hypointense contrast at the injection site on
T2*-weighted MRI, partially explained by an immune response. Contrasting with
LV, AAV
injection resulted in little background contrast and AAV-mediated MRI reporter
overexpression resulted in significant contrast-to-background on T2*-weighted
MRI. We developed an image analysis pipeline that permits to quantitatively
compare the hypointense contrast parameters of timeline scans or different
experimental groups.
