In Vivo Small Animal Imaging Protocols

The Olympus OV100 Small Animal Imaging System (Olympus Corp., Tokyo, Japan), containing an MT-20 light source (Olympus Biosystems, Planegg, Germany) and DP70 CCD camera (Olympus Corp., Tokyo, Japan) [36 (link)]; the Dino-Lite imaging system (AM4113T-GFBW Dino-Lite Premier; AnMo Electronics Corporation, Taiwan) [30 (link)]; and the MVX10 long-working distance microscope (Olympus Corp.) [37 (link)] were used for imaging live mice. To analyze for recurrence and to follow tumor progression postoperatively, weekly noninvasive whole-body imaging of the mice was performed using the iBox Scientia Small Animal Imaging System (UVP LLC, Upland, CA, USA). GFP fluorescent-tumor areas were recorded every week [16 (link), 38 (link)–40 (link)]. The working-distance setting for GFP imaging in the iBox was adjusted to image the maximum possible fluorescent area in each mouse both before surgery and after surgery. All images were analyzed with ImageJ v1.440 (National Institutes of Health).