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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2016 Jan 22;104:44–60. doi: 10.1016/j.addr.2016.01.008

Fig. 5. Optical bioluminescence imaging.

Fig. 5

(a) A schematic illustration of the basic principle of in vivo bioluminescence imaging. In this case, mouse with luciferase (Luc) labeled cancer cells that express luciferase is required. After injecting the enzyme substrate luciferin into the mouse body, the bioluminescence light is generated when the luciferin molecules interact with luciferase via enzyme-catalyzed oxidation. Finally, the emitted light is detected by a cooled CCD camera and the image is produced by computer. (b) The plasmids used for transfection into mouse liver. (c) Representative images (upper image) of mice co-transfected with luciferase plasmid pGL3-control without siRNA, with luciferase siRNA or with unrelated siRNA. The results indicate that the luciferase expression was specifically suppressed by siRNA-mediated inhibition in adult mice, but the unrelated siRNAs had no effect. Another result from (c) (lower image) shows the gene silencing of luciferase expression by functional shRNAs (pShh1-Ff1). These outcomes demonstrated that the plasmid-encoded shRNAs can induce an effective and specific RNAi response in vivo. Adapted with permission from [122].