BioCentury
ARTICLE | Preclinical News

Caltech develops acoustic tech to track cells

January 3, 2018 10:42 PM UTC

In a paper published in Nature, researchers at the California Institute of Technology genetically modified bacterial cells to be detectable inside a live host using ultrasound imaging, providing a sensitive cell tracking method for microbiome research and cell therapies.

The technology is based on ultrasound contrast produced by gas vesicles -- hollow protein nanostructures used by aquatic organisms for buoyancy. The researchers engineered E. coli to express acoustic reporter genes (ARG) from two gas vesicles and injected them into mouse colons. Luminescent or fluorescent cells were co-injected as comparators. ...