Molecular imaging of cancer and the implications for pre-invasive disease
- Abstract:
- The fluorescence microscope is a standard tool in any cell biology lab, enabling the visualisation of appropriately labelled probe molecules in the context of cell anatomy. These probe molecules can be used to image various aspects of cell physiology and biochemistry, for example, the levels of intracellular Ca2+, the location, binding and mobility of specific proteins and, using gene reporter constructs, the transcriptional activity of specific genes. The techniques of molecular imaging allow similar measurements to be made deep inside the tissues of a living organism, for example in tumours in mouse models of cancer. Since many of the molecular imaging modalities that are employed in the laboratory can also be used clinically, the techniques of molecular imaging, in principle, also permit investigation of these fundamental aspects of tumour biology in the clinic. These techniques are set to play a key role in translational research, that is in translating our growing understanding of the cell biology of cancer and pre-invasive disease into new ways of detecting and treating the disease. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.