Flexible peritoneal windows for quantitative fluorescence and bioluminescence preclinical imaging

At present, there is considerable interest in the use of in vivo fluorescence and bioluminescence imaging to track the onset and progression of pathologic processes in preclinical models of human disease. Optical quantitation of such phenomena, however, is often problematic, frequently complicated by the overlying tissue's scattering and absorption of light, as well as the presence of endogenous cutaneous and subcutaneous fluorophores. To partially circumvent this information loss, we report here the development of flexible, surgically implanted, transparent windows that enhance quantitative in vivo fluorescence and bioluminescence imaging of optical reporters. These windows are metal and glass free and thus compatible with computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, and single-photon emission computed tomography; they also permit visualization of much larger areas with fewer impediments to animal locomotion and grooming than those previously described. To evaluate their utility in preclinical imaging, we surgically implanted these windows in the abdominal walls of female athymic nude mice and subsequently inoculated each animal with 1 × 10(4) to 1 × 10(6) bioluminescent human ovarian cancer cells (SKOV3ip.1-luc). Longitudinal imaging studies of fenestrated animals revealed up to 48-fold gains in imaging sensitivity relative to nonfenestrated animals, with relatively few complications, allowing wide-field in vivo visualization of nascent metastatic ovarian cancer colonization.