Jack Leslie
Abstract:
Validation of a novel near infrared fluorescence based imaging method to achieve dual cell tracking
Inflammation is a central factor in the development in many diseases. Recent advances in cell based treatments have fuelled non-invasive longitudinal imaging of live cells in animal models, which can be applied to better understand the temporal and spatial kinetics of the inflammatory response.
The cRel subunit of the transcription factor NF-κB has been implicated in a wide range of diseases and is known to play key roles within the immune response. cRel-/- mice have been shown to have an altered inflammatory response following acute liver injury, including a reduction in the number of neutrophils and attenuated fibrosis.
We aimed to determine whether in vivo optical imaging could be utilised to quantify (in time and space) the recruitment of a wild type or cRel-/- neutrophils to the liver following injury.
Much of our knowledge from in vivo cell tracking experiments is obtained using in vivo imaging modalities capable of monitoring a single defined cell population or from conventional methods such as microscopy and flow cytometry which only provide a snapshot picture into cell chemotaxis. Using current in vivo imaging methods to compare the dynamics and the interplay between multiple cell populations requires that each cell type is injected into different recipient mice, which does not control for recipient inter-variability or the efficiency of cell administration.
We have developed a novel in vivo imaging methodology to image the spectral signature of two different NIR dyes in a deep-seated organ of C57Bl/6 mice allowing us to interrogate spatial interactions between cell types.
Biography:
I’m a 3rd year PhD student in the Newcastle Fibrosis Research group working under the supervision of Prof Fiona Oakley.
The focus of my research is to investigate the role of the NF-kB subunit c-Rel and how it regulates multi-organ repair, fibrogenesis and cancer using a variety of genetically modified mice and models of organ injury. I am particularly interested in how cRel regulates the innate immune response following injury. We have developed a novel non-invasive method for monitoring the kinetics of innate immune cells following injury which can be coupled with flow cytometry to generate a detailed profile of immune cell recruitment.
