Tom Roberts*1, 2, Francesca Norris*1, 2, Helen Carnaghan3, Jack Wells1, Bernard Siow1, 4, Peter J. Scambler1, Agostino Pierro3, Simon Eaton3
1UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging, Division of Medicine and Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom; 2Centre for Mathematics and Physics in Life Sciences & Experimental Biology (*Joint First Authors), University College London, London, United Kingdom; 3Paediatric Surgery Unit, UCL Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom; 4Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Ex Vivo MRI is a successful, non-invasive technique for studying disease development and gene function in mutant mouse models. However, there is currently no established method for assessing ex vivo embryos retained in the amniotic sac using MRI. Such a method would be valuable for determining the phenotypes of mutant embryos with abdominal wall defects such as gastroschisis and omphalocele, which are difficult to distinguish between using light microscopy. In this study, we developed a novel methodology to visualise "in amnio" embryos and successfully applied the technique to image a fetus with an omphalocoele defect.