Figure 1.

Islets transplantation imaging of MRI, SPECT and PET. (A) In vivo MR imaging of recipients having transplanted islets. In vivo spin echo T2-weighted axial MR images of heparin-SPIO-conjugated islets 30 days after xenotransplantation under the renal subcapsular membrane of left kidney in nude mice (300 islet equivalent/mouse). The dark area in the left kidney represents a labeled islet graft. Arrow: transplantation site. Reprinted from Biomaterials. 32(35). Jung MJ, Lee SS, Hwang YH, et al.MRI of transplanted surface-labeled pancreatic islets with heparinized superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. 9391–9400, Copyright (2011), with permission from Elsevier.²¹ (B) Transplanted islets under the left kidney capsule of CD1 mice labeled by 111In-tropolone was imaged by three-dimensional reconstructions SPECT/CT. This research was originally published in J Nucl Med. Tai JH, Nguyen B, Wells RG, et al. Imaging of gene expression in live pancreatic islet cell lines using dual-isotope SPECT. J Nucl Med. 2007;49(1):94–102. ©SNMMI. http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/49/1/94.short.³⁹ (C) PET images were obtained after the [⁶⁸Ga]DO3A-VS-Cys40-Exendin-4 intravenous injections via the tail in NOD/SCID mice with human-transplanted islets in the liver. The liver with transplanted islets demonstrate prominent tracer uptake (arrow). Reproduced from Junfeng L, Rawson J, et al. Evaluation of [68Ga]DO3A-VSCys40- exendin-4 as a PET probe for imaging human transplanted islets in the liver. Sci Rep. 2019;9:5705. Creative Commons license and disclaimer available from: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.⁵⁶