Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of a murine kidney specimen acquired at 31x31x31 cubic micron resolution. Segmented glomeruli are shown in blue and segmented vessels are shown in red. Glomeruli are segmented using a custom Spherical Hough Transform (code shared in Matlab Central [ Ссылка ]). Research study was conducted at the Duke Center for In Vivo Microscopy (CIVM [ Ссылка ]). Abstract can be found on PubMed ([ Ссылка ]) and is included below.
Xie L, Cianciolo RE, Hulette B, Lee HW, Qi Y, Cofer G, Johnson GA. Magnetic resonance histology of age-related nephropathy in the Sprague Dawley rat. Toxicol Pathol. 2012 Jul;40(5):764-78. doi: 10.1177/0192623312441408. Epub 2012 Apr 13.
Abstract (abbreviated)
This study tested the hypothesis that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could detect image-based biomarkers of chronic disease, inflammation, or age-related degeneration in the kidney. We examined the entire intact kidney in a spontaneous model of chronic progressive nephropathy. Kidneys from male Sprague Dawley rats were imaged at 8 weeks (n = 4) and 52 weeks (n = 4) on a 9.4 T system dedicated to MR microscopy. Full coverage of the entire kidney was achieved with isotropic spatial resolution at 31 microns (voxel volume = 30 pL) using a gradient recalled echo sequence. Isotropic spatial resolution of 15 microns (voxel volume = 3.4 pL) was achieved in a biopsy core specimen. Qualitative age-related structural changes, such as renal cortical microvasculature, tubular dilation, interstitial fibrosis, and glomerular architecture, were apparent. The nondestructive 3D images allowed measurement of quantitative differences of kidney volume, pelvis volume, main vessel volume, glomerular size, as well as thickness of the cortex, outer medulla, and inner medulla.
