The islets of Langerhans play a central role in maintenance of glucose homeostasis. Apoptosis of the insulin-producing beta cells of the islet leads to diabetes mellitus. The ability to non-invasively image or assess the islets of Langerhans would yield valuable insight into the progression of diabetes, guiding interventions intended to slow or halt diabetes progression and enabling assessment of islets after transplantation. The primary objective of this dissertation was to establish and validate a technique capable of non-invasively imaging the islet of Langerhans. The bulk of this work focuses on the use of bioluminescence imaging. Islets were engineered to express the luciferase optical reporter gene and applied to murine models of diabetes and transplant settings. In order to accurately quantify information from in vivo bioluminescence imaging, light-emitting standards were employed to determine sources of variance and standardize measurements. A three-dimensional bioluminescence reconstruction algorithm was characterized using these light-emitting standards and applied to bioluminescent islets. As bioluminescence imaging is limited to small animal models, clinically relevant islet imaging approaches using magnetic resonance imaging and target contrast agents were evaluated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-11082006-102347 |
| Date | 01 December 2006 |
| Creators | Virostko, John Michael |
| Contributors | E. Duco Jansen, Alvin C Powers, John C. Gore, James M. Joers, Michael I. Miga |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-11082006-102347/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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