Imaging tuberculosis with endogenous beta-lactamase reporter enzyme fluorescence in live mice.

ABSTRACT: The slow growth rate and genetic intractability of tubercle bacilli has hindered progress toward understanding tuberculosis, one of the most frequent causes of death worldwide. We overcame this roadblock through development of near-infrared (NIR) fluorogenic substrates for beta-lactamase, an enzyme expressed by tubercle bacilli, but not by their eukaryotic hosts, to allow real-time imaging of pulmonary infections and rapid quantification of bacteria in living animals by a strategy called reporter enzyme fluorescence (REF). This strategy has a detection limit of 6 +/- 2 x 10(2) colony-forming units (CFU) of bacteria with the NIR substrate CNIR5 in only 24 h of incubation in vitro, and as few as 10(4) CFU in the lungs of live mice. REF can also be used to differentiate infected from uninfect

SUBMITTER: Kong Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2901431 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature