In vivo mouse imaging and spectroscopy in drug discovery

Imaging modalities such as micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), micro-positron emission tomography (micro-PET), high-resolution MRI, optical imaging, and high-resolution ultrasound have become invaluable tools in preclinical pharmaceutical research. They can be used to non-invasively investigate, in vivo, rodent biology and metabolism, disease models, and pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs. The advantages and limitations of each approach usually determine its application, and therefore a small-rodent imaging laboratory in a pharmaceutical environment should ideally provide access to several techniques. In this paper we aim to illustrate how these techniques may be used to obtain meaningful information for the phenotyping of transgenic mice and for the analysis of compounds in murine models of disease.