Table 4:

Recent examples of applications of molecular neuroimaging in transgenic animals

Type of Genetically Engineered Model	Promoter Expression	Location of Model	Animal Method	Imaging	Application	Reference
Transgenic	Estrogen receptor	Ubiquitous + brain	Mice	Fluc BLI	Study of estrogen control of growth, differentiation, and function of many systems; study of implications for estrogen-replacement therapy	44
Transgenic	GFAP	Brain	Mice	Fluc BLI	Dynamic monitoring of neuronal cell death	45
Transgenic	Smad binding element responsive to TGF-β signaling	Brain	Mice	Fluc BLI	Study of Smad2/3 activation in traumatic brain injury	46
Transgenic	Smad binding element responsive to TGF-β signaling	Brain	Mice	Fluc BLI	Study of Smad2activation in neuronal degeneration	47
Transgenic	Serum amyloid A protein 1	Ubiquitous + brain	Mice	Fluc BLI	Study of role of SAA1 induction in chronic inflammation associated with amyloid deposition	48
Gene targeting knockin	CMV	Ubiquitous + brain	Mice	GFP and RFP fluorescence	Study of alternative splicing regulation of FGFR-2 in the brain.	49
Transgenic	IκBα	Ubiquitous + brain	Mice	Fluc BLI	Study of regulation of IκBαexpression and NF-κB transcriptional activity	50
Transgenic	Mouse GFAP	Brain	Mice	Fluc BLI	Study of meningitis and accompanying neuronal injury	51
Transgenic	c-fos, CMV	Ubiquitous + brain	Mice	Fluc BLI	Study of immediate-early genes involved in neural pathways linked to specific behaviors	52
Transgenic	Estrogen-responsive elements	Ubiquitous + brain	Mice	Fluc BLI	Study of activation of estrogen receptors and kinetics of gene activation by estrogenic compounds	53
Conditional recombinase knockout	Pro-opiomelanocortin	Pituitary	Mice	Fluc BLI	Study of spontaneous retinoblastoma pathway-dependent pituitary cancer and its response to doxorubicin	54
Transgenic	E2F1	Brain	Mice	Fluc BLI	Imaging cell proliferation in gliomas with loss of RB control	55

Note:—BLI indicates bioluminescence imaging; FGFR-2, fibroblast growth factor receptor-2; CMV, cytomegalovirus; GFP, green fluorescent protein; RFP, red fluorescent protein; IκBα, an inhibitor of nuclear transcription factor NF-κB, which regulates the expression of proinflammatory and cytotoxic genes; c-fos, an immediate early gene; RB, retinoblastoma protein.