[From property of IL-1β to imaging of inflammation]

Interleukin-1β is widely known as an inflammatory cytokine, and is an important and indispensable factor to understand inflammation. Therefore many researchers have investigated function and property of interleukin-1β. However some questions still remain to be fully elucidated. To approach these questions, bioimaging technology has been exploited recently. As interleukin-1β is regulated by unique mechanism via transcriptional activation and protein processing, several imaging tools have been developed for analyzing interleukin-1β by applying the regulatory mechanism. In this review I introduce representative interleukin-1β-related imaging technologies including basic principle of them and findings obtained with them. Additionally I referred briefly to other imaging technologies for monitoring inflammation in the last section.