It's not just about anatomy: In vivo bioluminescence imaging as an eyepiece into biology

Among the newly described tools that enable analyses of cellular and molecular events in living animals, in vivo bioluminescence imaging (BLI) offers important opportunities for investigating a wide variety of disease processes. BLI utilizes luciferase as an internal biological light source that can be genetically programmed to noninvasively report the presence or activation of specific biological events. Applications of BLI have included the use of luciferase to demonstrate expression of cell- and tissue-specific promoters, label cell populations, guide detection by other imaging modalities, and detect protein-protein interaction. These applications of BLI technology have allowed quantitative measurements of tumor burden and treatment response, immune cell trafficking, and detection of gene transfer. Spatiotemporal information can be rapidly obtained in the context of whole biological systems in vivo, which can accelerate the development of experimental therapeutic strategies. This paper provides a review of the biological applications in which in vivo BLI has been utilized to nondestructively monitor biological processes in intact small animal models, and highlights some of the advancements that will increase the versatility of BLI as a molecular imaging tool.