Valeria
Righi1,2, Melissa Starkey3, George Dai2,
Laurence G. Rahme3, A Aria Tzika1,2
1NMR Surgical Laboratory, Department of
Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Shriners Burns Institute, Harvard
Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; 2Department of
Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Athinoula
A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Boston, MA, United States; 3Molecular
Surgery Laboratory, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and
Shriners Burns Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
We
compared wild-type and GFP-tagged cells of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and
Escherichia coli bacteria using MRI with Magnetization Transfer Contrast
(MTC). This method was sensitive enough to distinguish between GFP-tagged and
non-tagged cells at cell concentrations relevant to those used in animal
infection models. The significance of this method is that it can be used to
visualize bacterial infections in vivo in real time without being restricted
to the use of transparent tissue necessary for optical imaging. This method
provides a valuable tool to study the impact of novel antibacterial
therapeutics.