Abstract
The fast developing field of RNA interference (RNAi) requires monitoring of small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery to targeted organs and evaluating the efficiency of target gene silencing. The molecular imaging approach fits perfectly to fulfill these needs and provides information in a fast, reproducible, and noninvasive manner. This review serves as a first attempt to summarize existing information on various imaging modalities and their application for siRNA imaging. It is noteworthy that new publications in this field appear almost on a weekly basis and the authors have made a sincere attempt to reflect the development of this area in their review.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Fire, A., Xu, S., Montgomery, M., Kostas, S., Driver, S.E., and Mello, C. (1998) Potent and specific genetic interference by double-stranded RNA in Caenorhabditis elegans, Nature 391, 806–811.
Massoud, T. and Gambhir, S. (2003) Molecular imaging in living subjects: seeing fundamental biological processes in a new light, Genes Dev. 17, 545–580.
Allport, J. and Weissleder, R. (2001) In vivo imaging of gene and cell therapies, Exp. Hematol. 29, 1237–1246.
Gambhir, S. (2002) Molecular imaging of cancer with positron emission tomography, Nat. Rev. Cancer 2, 683–693.
Rosenthal, M., Cullom, J., Hawkins, W., Moore, S., Tsui, B., and Yester, M. (1995) Quantitative SPECT imaging: A review and recommendations by the Focus Committee of the Society of Nuclear Medicine Computer and Instrumentation Council, J. Nucl. Med. 36, 1489–1513.
Weissleder, R. and Mahmood, U. (2001) Molecular Imaging, Radiology 219, 316–333.
Contag, C. and Bachmann, M. (2002) Advances in in vivo bioluminescence imaging of gene expression, Annu. Rev. Biomed. Eng. 4, 235–260.
Lewis, J., Achilefu, S., Garbow, J., Laforest, R., and Welch, M. (2002) Small animal imaging: current technology and perspectives for oncological imaging, Eur. J. Cancer 38, 2173–2188.
Rudin, M. and Weissleder, R. (2003) Molecular imaging in drug discovery and development, Nat. Rev. 2, 123–131.
Ntziachristos, V., Tung, C., Bremer, C., and Weissleder, R. (2002) Fluorescence molecular tomography resolves protease activity in vivo, Nat. Med. 8, 757–760.
Michalet, X., Pinaud, F., Bentolila, L., Tsay, J., Doose, S., Li, J., Sundaresan, G., Wu, A., Gambhir, S., and Weiss, S. (2005) Quantum dots for live cells, in vivo imaging, and diagnostics, Science 307, 538–544.
Hardy, J., Edinger, M., Bachmann, M., Negrin, R., Fathman, C., and Contag, C. (2001) Bioluminescence imaging of lymphocyte trafficking in vivo, Exp. Hematol. 29, 1353–1360.
Bremer, C., Tung, C., Bogdanov, A. Jr., and Weissleder, R. (2002) Imaging of differential protease expression in breast cancers for detection of aggressive tumor phenotypes, Radiology 222, 814–818.
Contag, C., Spilman, S., Contag, P., Oshiro, M., Eames, B., Dennery, P., Stevenson, D., and Benaron, D. (1997) Visualizing gene expression in living mammals using a bioluminescent reporter, Photochem. Photobiol. 66, 523–531.
Caravan P. (2007), Modo M. and Bulte, J., Eds., in Molecular and Cellular MR imaging,CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group,Boca Raton, FL37–59,
Josephson, L., Tung, C., Moore, A., and Weissleder, R. (1999) High-efficiency intracellular magnetic labeling with novel superparamagnetic-Tat peptide conjugates, Bioconjugate. Chem. 10, 186–191.
Moore, A., Sun, P., Cory, D., Högemann, D., Weissleder, R., and Lipes, M. (2002) MR Imaging of insulitis in autoimmune diabetes, Magn. Reson. Med. 47, 751–758.
Weissleder, R., Simonova, M., Bogdanova, A., Bredow, S., Enochs, W., and Bogdanov, A. (1997) MR imaging and scintigraphy of gene expression through melanin induction, Radiology 204, 425–429.
Stegman, L., Rehemtulla, A., Beattie, B., Kievit, E., Lawrence, T., Blasberg, R., Tjuvajev, J., and Ross, B. (1999) Noninvasive quantitation of cytosine deaminase transgene expression in human tumor xenografts with in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96, 9821–9826.
Weissleder, R., Moore, A., Mahmood, U., Bhorade, R., Benveniste, H., Chiocca, E., and Basilion, J. (2000) In vivo magnetic resonance imaging of transgene expression, Nat. Med. 6, 351–354.
Moore, A., Josephson, L., Bhorade, R., Basilion, J., and Weissleder, R. (2001) Human transferrin receptor gene as a marker gene for MR imaging, Radiology 221, 751–758.
Artemov, D., Mori, N., Okollie, B., and Bhujwalla, Z. (2003) MR molecular imaging of the HER-2/neu receptor in breast cancer cells using targeted iron oxide nanoparticles, Magn. Reson. Med. 49, 403–408.
Moore, A., Medarova, Z., Potthast, A., and Dai, G. (2004) In vivo targeting of underglycosylated MUC-1 tumor antigen using a multi-modal imaging probe, Cancer Res. 64, 1821–1827.
Medarova, Z., Pham, W., Kim, Y., Dai, G., and Moore, A. (2006) In vivo imaging of tumor response to therapy using a dual-modality imaging strategy, Int. J. Cancer 118, 2796–2802.
Dendy, P. and Heaton B. (1999). in Physics for Diagnostic Radiology,Institute of Physics,Bristol, UKpp. 249–278,
Turnbull, D. and Foster, F. (2002) In vivo ultrasound biomicroscopy in developmental biology, Trends Biotechnol. 20, S29–S33.
Lanza, G. and Wickline, S. (2001) Targeted ultrasonic contrast agents for molecular imaging and therapy, Prog. Cardiovasc. Dis. 44, 13–31.
McCaffrey, A.P., Meuse, L., Pham, T.T., Conklin, D.S., Hannon, G.J., and Kay, M.A. (2002) RNA interference in adult mice, Nature 418, 38–39.
Lewis, D.L., Hagstrom, J.E., Loomis, A.G., Wolff, J.A., and Herweijer, H. (2002) Efficient delivery of siRNA for inhibition of gene expression in postnatal mice, Nat. Genet. 32, 107–108.
Kobayashi, N., Matsui, Y., Kawase, A., Hirata, K., Miyagishi, M., Taira, K., Nishikawa, M., and Takakura, Y. (2004) Vector-based in vivo RNA interference: dose- and time-dependent suppression of transgene expression, J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 308, 688–693.
Hassani, Z., Lemkine, G.F., Erbacher, P., Palmier, K., Alfama, G., Giovannangeli, C., Behr, J.P., and Demeneix, B.A. (2005) Lipid-mediated siRNA delivery down-regulates exogenous gene expression in the mouse brain at picomolar levels, J. Gene Med. 7, 198–207.
Minakuchi, Y., Takeshita, F., Kosaka, N., Sasaki, H., Yamamoto, Y., Kouno, M., Honma, K., Nagahara, S., Hanai, K., Sano, A., Kato, T., Terada, M., and Ochiya, T. (2004) Atelocollagen-mediated synthetic small interfering RNA delivery for effective gene silencing in vitro and in vivo, Nucleic Acids Res. 32, e109.
Takeshita, F., Minakuchi, Y., Nagahara, S., Honma, K., Sasaki, H., Hirai, K., Teratani, T., Namatame, N., Yamamoto, Y., Hanai, K., Kato, T., Sano, A., and Ochiya, T. (2005) Efficient delivery of small interfering RNA to bone-metastatic tumors by using atelocollagen in vivo, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 12177–12182.
Takabatake, Y., Isaka, Y., Mizui, M., Kawachi, H., Shimizu, F., Ito, T., Hori, M., and Imai, E. (2005) Exploring RNA interference as a therapeutic strategy for renal disease, Gene Ther. 12, 965–973.
Zhang, Y., Boado, R.J., and Pardridge, W.M. (2003) In vivo knockdown of gene expression in brain cancer with intravenous RNAi in adult rats, J. Gene Med. 5, 1039–1045.
Pichler, A., Zelcer, N., Prior, J.L., Kuil, A.J., and Piwnica-Worms, D. (2005) In vivo RNA interference-mediated ablation of MDR1 P-glycoprotein, Clin. Cancer Res. 11, 4487–4494.
Hu-Lieskovan, S., Heidel, J.D., Bartlett, D.W., Davis, M.E., and Triche, T.J. (2005) Sequence-specific knockdown of EWS-FLI1 by targeted, nonviral delivery of small interfering RNA inhibits tumor growth in a murine model of metastatic Ewing’s sarcoma, Cancer Res. 65, 8984–8992.
Bartlett, D.W. and Davis, M.E. (2006) Insights into the kinetics of siRNA-mediated gene silencing from live-cell and live-animal bioluminescent imaging, Nucleic Acids Res. 34, 322–333.
Takahashi, Y., Nishikawa, M., Kobayashi, N., and Takakura, Y. (2005) Gene silencing in primary and metastatic tumors by small interfering RNA delivery in mice: quantitative analysis using melanoma cells expressing firefly and sea pansy luciferases, J. Control Release 105, 332–343.
Sorensen, D.R., Leirdal, M., and Sioud, M. (2003) Gene silencing by systemic delivery of synthetic siRNAs in adult mice, J. Mol. Biol. 327, 761–766.
Xia, H., Mao, Q., Paulson, H.L., and Davidson, B.L. (2002) siRNA-mediated gene silencing in vitro and in vivo, Nat. Biotechnol. 20, 1006–1010.
Van den Haute, C., Eggermont, K., Nuttin, B., Debyser, Z., and Baekelandt, V. (2003) Lentiviral vector-mediated delivery of short hairpin RNA results in persistent knockdown of gene expression in mouse brain, Hum. Gene Ther. 14, 1799–1807.
Rubinson, D.A., Dillon, C.P., Kwiatkowski, A.V., Sievers, C., Yang, L., Kopinja, J., Rooney, D.L., Ihrig, M.M., McManus, M.T., Gertler, F.B., Scott, M.L., and Van Parijs, L. (2003) A lentivirus-based system to functionally silence genes in primary mammalian cells, stem cells and transgenic mice by RNA interference, Nat. Genet. 33, 401–406.
Golzio, M., Mazzolini, L., Ledoux, A., Paganin, A., Izard, M., Hellaudais, L., Bieth, A., Pillaire, M., Cazaux, C., Hoffmann, J., Couderc, B., and Teissie, J. (2007) In vivo gene silencing in solid tumors by targeted electrically mediated siRNA delivery, Gene. Ther. 14, 752–759.
Sioud, M. and Sorensen, D.R. (2003) Cationic liposome-mediated delivery of siRNAs in adult mice, Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 312, 1220–1225.
Schiffelers, R.M., Ansari, A., Xu, J., Zhou, Q., Tang, Q., Storm, G., Molema, G., Lu, P.Y., Scaria, P.V., and Woodle, M.C. (2004) Cancer siRNA therapy by tumor selective delivery with ligand-targeted sterically stabilized nanoparticle, Nucleic Acids Res. 32, e149.
Landen, C.N. Jr., Chavez-Reyes, A., Bucana, C., Schmandt, R., Deavers, M.T., Lopez-Berestein, G., and Sood, A.K. (2005) Therapeutic EphA2 gene targeting in vivo using neutral liposomal small interfering RNA delivery, Cancer Res. 65, 6910–6918.
Santel, A., Aleku, M., Keil, O., Endruschat, J., Esche, V., Fisch, G., Dames, S., Loffler, K., Fechtner, M., Arnold, W., Giese, K., Klippel, A., and Kaufmann, J. (2006) A novel siRNA-lipoplex technology for RNA interference in the mouse vascular endothelium, Gene Ther. 13, 1222–1234.
Santel, A., Aleku, M., Keil, O., Endruschat, J., Esche, V., Durieux, B., Loffler, K., Fechtner, M., Rohl, T., Fisch, G., Dames, S., Arnold, W., Giese, K., Klippel, A., and Kaufmann, J. (2006) RNA interference in the mouse vascular endothelium by systemic administration of siRNA-lipoplexes for cancer therapy, Gene Ther. 13, 1360–1370.
Morrissey, D.V., Lockridge, J.A., Shaw, L., Blanchard, K., Jensen, K., Breen, W., Hartsough, K., Machemer, L., Radka, S., Jadhav, V., Vaish, N., Zinnen, S., Vargeese, C., Bowman, K., Shaffer, C.S., Jeffs, L.B., Judge, A., MacLachlan, I., and Polisky, B. (2005) Potent and persistent in vivo anti-HBV activity of chemically modified siRNAs, Nat. Biotechnol. 23, 1002–1007.
Chen, A., Derfus, A., Khetani, S., and Bhatia, S. (2005) Quantum dots to monitor RNAi delivery and improve gene silencing, Nucleic Acids Res. 22, E190–E97.
. Derfus, A., Chen, A., Min, D., Ruoclahti, E., and Bhatia, S. (2007) Targeted quantum dot conjugates for siRNA delivery, Bioconjug. Chem. Web release 140July-2007, DOI: 10.1021/bc060367e.
Tan, W., Jiang, S., and Zhang, Y. (2007) Quantum-dot based nanoparticles for targeted silencing of HER2/neu gene via RNA interference, Biomaterials 28, 1565–1571.
Chang, E., Zhu, M., and Drezek, R. (2007) Novel siRNA-based molecular beacons for dual imaging and therapy, Biotechnol. J. 2, 422–425.
Liu, N., Ding, H., Vanderheyden, J., Zhu, Z., and Zhang, Y. (2007) Radiolabeling small RNA with technetium-99m for visualizing cellular delivery and mouse biodistribution, Nucl. Med. Biol. 34, 399–404.
Medarova, Z., Pham, W., Farrar, C., Petkova, V., and Moore, A. (2007) In vivo imaging of siRNA delivery and silencing in tumors, Nat. Med. 13, 372–377.
Wunderbaldinger, P., Josephson, L., and Weissleder, R. (2002) Crosslinked iron oxides (CLIO): a new platform for the development of targeted MR contrast agents, Acad. Radiol. 9, (Suppl. 2)S304–306.
Fukuda, S. and Pelus, L.M. (2006) Survivin, a cancer target with an emerging role in normal adult tissues, Mol. Cancer Ther. 5, 1087–1098.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Humana Press, a part of Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Moore , A., Medarova , Z. (2009). Imaging of siRNA Delivery and Silencing. In: Sioud, M. (eds) siRNA and miRNA Gene Silencing. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 487. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-547-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-547-7_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-60327-546-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-60327-547-7
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols