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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Apr 18.
Published in final edited form as: Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2010 Sep 9;62(12):1175–1186. doi: 10.1016/j.addr.2010.08.008

Figure 5.

Figure 5

Tracking of survival and engraftment of transplanted islets by PET reporter labeling. (a) Immunohistological analysis of engineered HSV1-tk expressing islets, performed 15 days after transplantation, shows expression of thymidine kinase (shown in green) and insulin (red), observed in scattered islets. (b) Longitudinal micro PET imaging of a mouse with an intrahepatic islet graft shows that signals from the liver area of HSV1-tk expressing islets gradually decline over time. When imaged 40 days after transplantation, signals from the liver area were essentially at background levels. Signal loss was likely due to cellular death shortly after implantation and the transient nature of viral gene expression. Reprinted with permission from Y. Lu, et al., Noninvasive imaging of islet grafts using positron-emission tomography, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 103 (2006) 11294–9 (58).