中国科学院分子影像重点实验室知识库

The objective of our study is to develop a multimodality approach by combining magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and optical imaging methods to assess acute murine colitis at the macro- and microscopic level. In vivo MRI is used to measure the cross-sectional areas of colons at the macroscopic level. Dual-color confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) allows in vivo examination of the fluorescently labeled epithelial cells and micro-vessels in the mucosa with a spatial resolution of similar to 1.4 mu m during ongoing endoscopy. To further validate the structural changes of the colons in three-dimensions, ex vivo light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) is applied for in-toto imaging of cleared colon sections. MRI, LSFM, and CLE findings are significantly correlated with histological scoring (p < 0.01) and the inflammation-associated activity index (p < 0.01). Our multimodality imaging technique permits visualization of mucosa in colitis at different scales, which can enhance our understanding of the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel diseases. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License.