New approaches for the neuroimaging of gene expression.

Assaf A Gilad,Galit Pelled

doi:10.3389/fnint.2015.00005

Abstract

New approaches for the neuroimaging of gene expression.

Highlights

With more than 20,000 genes in the human genome identified and a similar number of genes in the rat and mouse genome known (Gibbs et al, 2004), elucidating their function has become a major challenge
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reporter genes are unique among all the reporter genes used with the various imaging modalities, since they can provide information about gene expression that can be co-registered with soft tissue anatomical and functional information (Gilad et al, 2007b)
For most candidate reporter genes, a significant improvement in detection efficiency has been achieved after mutations were systematically introduced (Cormack et al, 1996), or by mutations that created variants that could be detected with multiple excitation frequencies (Shaner et al, 2004; Zhao et al, 2005)

Summary

Introduction

With more than 20,000 genes in the human genome identified and a similar number of genes in the rat and mouse genome known (Gibbs et al, 2004), elucidating their function has become a major challenge. The process of uncovering reporter genes for molecular-genetic imaging usually begins by searching for a gene with desirable imaging properties, such as the green fluorescent protein (GFP) (Shimomura et al, 1962).

Results

Conclusion