PET-CT Imaging of Animal Infection Model

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)-computed tomography (CT) and CT data were acquired on multiple time points post-infection using a MultiScan Large Field of View Extreme Resolution Research Imager (LFER) 150 PET-CT (Mediso Medical Imaging Systems Ltd., Budapest, Hungary) as described before [31 (link)]. Animals fasted overnight and were sedated with ketamine (10 mg/kg ketamine hydrochloride (Alfasan Nederland BV, Woerden, The Netherlands)) combined with medetomidine hydrochloride (0.05 mg/kg (Sedastart; AST Farma B.V., Oudewater, The Netherlands)) to induce sedation and muscle relaxation, both applied intramuscularly (IM). The animals were positioned head-first supine (HFS) with the arms up. After the scan, upon return to their home cage, atipamezole hydrochloride (Sedastop, AST Farma B.V., Oudewater, The Netherlands, 5 mg/mL, 0.25 mg/kg) was administrated IM to antagonize medetomidine.