Technical Report abstract
Nature Medicine 13, 498 - 503 (2007)
Published online: 11 March 2007 | doi:10.1038/nm1497
MRI detection of transcriptional regulation of gene expression in transgenic mice
Batya Cohen1,4, Keren Ziv1,4, Vicki Plaks1, Tomer Israely1, Vyacheslav Kalchenko2, Alon Harmelin2, Laura E Benjamin3 & Michal Neeman1
Abstract
Ferritin, the iron storage protein, was recently suggested to be a candidate reporter for the detection of gene expression by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Here we report the generation of TET:EGFP-HAferritin (tet-hfer) transgenic mice, in which tissue-specific inducible transcriptional regulation of expression of the heavy chain of ferritin could be detected in vivo by MRI. We show organ specificity by mating the tet-hfer mice with transgenic mice expressing tetracycline transactivator (tTA) in liver hepatocytes and in vascular endothelial cells. Tetracycline-regulated overexpression of ferritin resulted in specific alterations of the transverse relaxation rate (R2) of water. Transgene-dependent changes in R2 were detectable by MRI in adult mice, and we also found fetal developmental induction of transgene expression in utero. Thus, the tet-hfer MRI reporter mice provide a new transgenic mouse platform for in vivo molecular imaging of reporter gene expression by MRI during both embryonic and adult life.
- Department of Biological Regulation, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
- Department of Veterinary Resources, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
- Department of Pathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Ave., Boston, Massachusetts, 02215 USA.
- These authors contributed equally to this work.
Correspondence to: Michal Neeman1 e-mail: michal.neeman@weizmann.ac.il
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MRI detection of transcriptional regulation of gene expression in transgenic miceNature Medicine Technical Report (01 Apr 2007)
MRI detection of transcriptional regulation of gene expression in transgenic miceNature Medicine Technical Report
