Title:Near Infrared Fluorescence Imaging to Determine Injection Success in Small Animals
Volume: 4
Issue: 1
Author(s): Sean E. Hofherr and Michael A. Barry
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Adenovirus, intravenous injection, systemic injection, near infrared fluorescence imaging, contrast agent.
Abstract: Translational projects frequently test agents by intravenous injection into small animals.
One problem is that it is usually uncertain exactly how successful each injection is at time of administration.
This leads to high variation in measurements and necessitates the use of larger groups of animals.
To circumvent this problem, we introduce a novel near infrared imaging method to determine
injection success in adult and neonatal mice. By co-injecting a near infrared fluorophore AngioSense
750 with a therapeutic agent, the location of near infrared fluorescence can be used to determine injection
quality. To test this method, an Adenoviral (Ad) vector expressing luciferase was co-injected with AngioSense at different
sites in adult and neonatal mice. When injection was successful, the near infrared fluorophore entered into the
bloodstream and spread throughout the body of the animal and vector-mediated luciferase activity was observed in the
liver. When intravenous injection was a failure, the near infrared and subsequent luciferase signals remained localized at
the injection site. This work has been performed with adult and neonatal mice using an adenoviral vector, but it can be
translated to other small animals or small anatomic sites for any therapeutic or basic science application.
