Figure 3.

Mechanisms of functional/molecular magnetic resonance imaging (f/mMRI) reporter genes and examples from oncolytic virotherapy and gene therapy studies

(A) Ferritin: Iron cations captured by ferritin induce differences in weighted MRI images. Imaging panel: MRI imaging of (a and b) 25 million particles or (c and d) 100 million particles of HSV-1 expressing ferritin in mouse brain. (B) Tyrosinase: Production of melanin induces differences in weighted MRI images. Imaging panel: MRI imaging of MCF-7 tumors with or without Tyr expression in mice. (C) Lysine-rich protein (LRP): LRP induces differences in weighted MRI images. Imaging panel: MRI chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) imaging of murine heart transduced with AAV-9 encoding LRP. Figure made with BioRender (https://biorender.com/) and Photoshop CC 2019. With the exception of ferritin, protein shapes are artistic interpretations. Permissions for imaging panels: (A) From Iordanova et al.¹⁰² and reproduced with licensed permission. (B) From Qin et al.¹⁰³ and reproduced under CC Attribution 3.0 Unported License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). (C) From Meier et al.¹⁰⁴ and reproduced under CC Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).